AND   SKETCHES 


CHARLES  FORSTER  SMITH 


REMINISCENCES 
AND  SKETCHES 


BY 


CHARLES  FORSTER  SMITH 


NASHVILLE,  TENN.;  DALLAS.  TEX. 

PUBLISHING  HOUSE  OF  THE  M.  E.  CHURCH.  SOUTH 

SMITH  &  LAMAR.  AGENTS 

1908 


COPYRIGHT,  1909, 

BY 
SMITH  &  LAMAR. 


TO 

3amrn  IS.  (Carlialr 

THE  BEST  MAN  I  HAVE  EVER  KNOWN  AND  MOST 
POTENT  HUMAN  INFLUENCE  IN  MY  LIFE 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

PREFACE ix 

I.  DR.  GARLAND i 

II.    BlSHOP  McTYEIRE 22 

III.  WILLIAM  MALONE  BASKERVILL 38 

IV.  PRESIDENT  CHARLES  KENDALL  ADAMS 59 

V.  THE  NATIONAL  HERO 74 

VI.  THE  SOUTH'S  IDEAL  HERO 96 

VII.  MAURICE  THOMPSON 113 

VIII.  SIDNEY  LANIER  AS  POET 136 

IX.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON 164 

X.  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 189 

XL  STEPHEN  PHILLIPS 242 

XII.  THE  DISCIPLINE  OF  SUFFERING  IN  SOPHO- 
CLES    263 

XIII.  THE  MAKING  OF  A  SCHOLAR 296 

XIV.  CHARACTER  AND  PERSONAL  INFLUENCE 327 

XV.  OUR  OLD  COUNTRY  SCHOOL 353 

XVI.  A  UNIVERSITY  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 362 

XVII.  FROM  PROVINCIAL  TO  NATIONAL  FEELING..  374 
XVIII.  FROM  HARVARD  TO  LEIPZIG  UNIVERSITY..  384 
XIX.  CHEYNE  Row — How  Do  LONDONERS  PRO- 
NOUNCE IT? 394 

XX.  THE  PASTOR  FOR  ME 398 

XXI.  THE  PLAIN  PROSE  OF  LIFE  IN  THE  SMOKY 

MOUNTAINS 404 

(v) 


vi  Contents. 

XXII.  HOMERIC  QUALITIES  IN  THE  GREAT  SMOKY 

MOUNTAINS 4I, 

XXIII.  FROM  ROAN  TO  MITCHELL 424 

XXIV.  CLINGMAN'S  DOME 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


page 

LANDON  C.  GARLAND i 

BISHOP  HOLLAND  N.  McTvEiRE 22 

WILLIAM  MALONE  BASKERVILL 38 

CHARLES  KENDALL  ADAMS 59 

GEORGE  WASHINGTON 74 

ROBERT  EDWARD  LEE 96 

MAURICE  THOMPSON 113 

SIDNEY  LANIER '. 136 

RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON 164 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD 189 

STEPHEN  PHILLIPS 242 

SOPHOCLES 263 

(vii) 


PREFACE. 

TiHE  suggestion  of  this  volume  came  from  two 
students  of  former  years  who  have  attained  dis- 
tinction in  letters.  If  the  approbation  of  old 
friends  in  whose  judgment  and  good  taste  one 
has  confidence  is  endorsed  by  acceptance  on  the 
part  of  the  first  publisher  to  whom  the  material 
is  submitted,  and  a  fair  offer  is  made,  it  is  ex- 
cusable perhaps  to  yield  to  a  secretly  cherished 
wish  and  bring  old  papers  out  again  from  their 
dusty  retirement.  If  the  reception  of  the  volume 
should  be  as  kindly  as  that  of  the  individual  pa- 
pers, the  author  would  have  no  reason  to  com- 
plain. 

Many  thanks  are  hereby  expressed  to  the  jour- 
nals whose  kindness  permits  the  reprinting  of  the 
papers,  namely:  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  Christian 
Union,  Independent,  Methodist  Review,  Cumber- 
land Presbyterian  Review,  Sewanee  Review, 
South  Atlantic  Quarterly,  Transactions  of  the 
Wisconsin  Academy,  Vanderbilt  Quarterly,  Chris- 
tian Advocate,  Southern  Christian  Advocate,  and 
Nashville  American. 

(be) 


LANDON    C.    GARLAND. 


REMINISCENCES  AND  SKETCHES. 


I. 
DOCTOR  GARLAND. 

Landon  Cabell  Garland,  born  in  Nelson  county,  Vir- 
ginia, March  21,  1810,  was  graduated  from  Hampden- 
Sidney  College,  Virginia,  in  1829,  and  was  that  year 
elected  Lecturer,  later  Professor  of  Chemistry,  in  Wash- 
ington College,  now  Washington  and  Lee  University. 
In  1834  he  accepted  a  professorship  in  Randolph-Macon 
College,  and  in  1836  succeeded  Stephen  Olin  as  Presi- 
dent. In  1846  he  resigned  to  study  law,  but  when  just 
ready  to  be  admitted  to  the  bar  was  offered  the  chair 
of  Physics  and  Astronomy  in  the  University  of  Ala- 
bama, which  he  accepted,  entering  upon  its  duties  in 
1847.  In  1853-55  ne  served  as  President  of  the  North- 
east and  Southwest  Alabama  Railway,  but  returned  to 
the  University  of  Alabama  as  President  in  1855.  He 
held  that  position  till  the  buildings  were  burned  by  the 
Federal  army  during  the  Civil  War,  and  after  that  was 
retained  as  sole  officer  of  the  faculty  to  secure  means 
for  rebuilding.  Accepting  a  professorship  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Mississippi  in  1867,  he  remained  there  till 
elected  Chancellor  of  the  newly  organized  Vanderbilt 
University  in  1875.  At  Vanderbilt  he  was  Chancellor 
and  Professor  of  Physics  and  Astronomy  for  eighteen 

CO 


2  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

years ;  then,  his  resignation  of  the  former  office,  offered 
in  1891,  having  been  finally  accepted  (1893),  when  Dr. 
Kirkland  was  elected  Chancellor,  he  was  continued  on 
full  salary  as  Chancellor  Emeritus  and  Professor  of 
Physics  and  Astronomy  till  his  death,  February  12, 
1895- 

IT  was  my  habit,  while  at  Vanderbilt  Univer- 
sity, occasionally  to  make  notes  of  conversa- 
tions with  Dr.  Garland.  When  he  was  in  the 
humor  to  talk  freely  of  himself  and  his  ex- 
periences, it  was  a  delight  to  listen  to  him,  and 
I  used  to  feel  that  it  was  a  pity  this  should  all 
be  lost.  He  had  had  a  longer  educational  career 
than  any  man  within  my  knowledge,  and  many 
things  he  told  properly  belonged  to  educational 
history.  But  I  knew  the  Doctor's  modesty  was 
such  that  he  would  positively  forbid  any  public 
use  of  facts  given  in  private  conversation.  So  I 
would  write  afterwards  in  a  notebook  what  had 
especially  impressed  me,  and  as  nearly  as  possi- 
ble in  his  own  words.  Some  of  these  conversa- 
tions I  shall  now  reproduce,  following  as  close- 
ly as  may  be  the  chronological  order.  If  I 
thought  there  was  anything  in  these  reminis- 
cences that  could  rightly  offend  any  one,  I  should 
feel  his  prohibition  still  laid  upon  me  and  print 
nothing.  He  was  one  of  the  simplest,  most 
guileless,  sincerest.  most  unselfish  men  I  ever 


Doctor  Garland,  3 

knew — one  of  the  two  or  three  best  men  whom 
it  has  been  my  good  fortune  to  be  intimately  ac- 
quainted with.  I  cannot  remember  the  time 
when  his  name  was  not  a  household  word  in 
my  family;  for  he  had  been  the  favorite  in- 
structor of  my  father  and  of  my  father-in-law, 
and  a  brother  of  mine  had  been  named  for  him 
forty1  years  ago.  I  still  recall  the  thrill  with 
which  I  first  saw  him  on  a  railway  train  about 
eighteen  years  ago,  but  could  not  summon  cour- 
age to  address  him.  I  owe  him  a  debt  of  grati- 
tude I  can  never  repay,  and  I  am  sure  he  would 
not  have  liked  me  to  try  to  repay  it  with  eulogy. 
The  best  thing  is  to  let  him  speak  once  more 
for  himself. 

One  of  the  most  impressive  scenes  I  ever  wit- 
nessed in  the  chapel  at  Vanderbilt  was  when  Dr. 
Garland,  one  Monday  morning  in  1885,  referred 
to  the  remark  made  by  the  pastor  at  church  the 
day  before:  "We  have  prayer  meeting  Friday 
evenings  at  Wesley  Hall,  and  the  Chancellor  will 
not  be  there."  He  first  commended  the  pastor  for 
his  frankness  and  fidelity  in  not  sparing  him 
when  he  felt  it  to  be  his  duty  to  speak,  and  then 
explained  that  he  felt  constrained  to  make  a  per- 
sonal statement  to  the  students.  When  he  had 

'Written  in  1895. 


4  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

told  of  an  infirmity  that  for  years  had  rendered 
it  impossible  for  him  to  go  out  at  night  without 
great  loss  of  sleep,  he  turned  to  the  students  and 
said :  "But  I  appeal  to  you ;  have  I  not  made  be- 
fore you  that  loudest  of  all  professions,  a  godly 
life?"  And  I  thought,  "It  is  old  Samuel  again." 
No  one  could  dare  to  say  that  who  had  not  a 
blameless  life  behind  him.  About  that  time  a 
graduate  of  the  university  told  me  that  he  had 
felt,  and  still  felt,  that  Dr.  Garland  had  misun- 
derstood him  and  had  done  him  an  injustice 
while  he  was  a  student,  and  yet  that  he  rever- 
enced him  as  he  did  no  man  living.  It  was  a 
pure  tribute  of  respect  to  great  and  unselfish 
character. 

In  October,  1885,  Dr.  Garland  was  telling  me 
one  day  about  his  early  career.  He  was  gradu- 
ated from  Hampden-Siclney  College,  Virginia — 
at  that  time  "the  second  in  age  and  first  in  rank 
in  Virginia" — in  September,  1829,  and  before  his 
graduation  was  elected  Lecturer  on  Chemistry  at 
Washington  College,  now  Washington  and  Lee 
University.  He  was  then  in  his  twentieth  year. 
He  had  pursued  the  study  of  chemistry  with  en- 
thusiasm in  his  junior  year,  and  had  taken  it  as 
an  extra  in  senior,  reading  a  great  deal  parallel 
of  his  own  accord.  Being  a  minor,  he  had  to  get 
his  father's  permission  to  accept.  He  had  been 


Doctor  Garland.  5 

expecting  to  study  law,  but  his  father  told  him 
he  might  accept  the  position  for  three  years,  and 
then  return  to  the  law.  He  filled  the  place  so 
acceptably  that  he  was  made  full  professor  the 
next  year,  but  he  modestly  said  he  could  never 
have  sustained  himself  at  that  age  in  a  reputable 
institution;  the  total  absence,  however,  of  any 
previous  instruction  that  deserved  the  name  gave 
him  by  way  of  contrast  a  reputation  quite  be- 
yond his  deserts.  A  wealthy  farmer  died,  leav- 
ing $25,000  to  endow  the  chair  of  Chemistry,  the 
interest  from  which  ($1,500),  with  fees,  made 
his  salary  $2,000.  When  he  first  entered  upon 
his  duties,  he  found  only  one  piece  of  apparatus, 
a  compound  blowpipe.  He  induced  the  trustees 
to  purchase  some  apparatus,  and  when  he  began 
to  lecture  on  gases  the  townspeople  flocked  thith- 
er to  see  the  experiments.  Once,  when  he  was 
using  the  compound  blowpipe,  some  hydrogen 
from  a  leaking  joint  became  ignited,  and  the  il- 
lumination frightened  his  audience  so  that  they 
rushed  pellmell  from  the  room. 

The  Doctor  gave  an  amusing  account  of  morn- 
ing prayers  at  Washington  College.  They  were 
held  at  5  A.M.,  winter  and  summer.  At  4:30  a 
negro  man  went  through  the  buildings  with  a 
tobacco-horn,  blowing  up  the  sleepers.  Dr.  Mar- 
shall, brother  of  the  Chief  Justice,  used  at  the 


6  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

second  blast,  at  five  o'clock,  to  leap  out  of  bed, 
and,  just  as  he  was,  without  even  his  slippers,  go 
into  chapel — across  the  hall — and  hold  prayers. 

When  Randolph-Macon  College  was  organ- 
ized (1832),  Dr.  Garland  was  elected  Professor 
of  Chemistry  and  Physics,  at  a  nominal  salary 
of  $1,200.  He  was  of  Methodist  parentage, 
though  not  a  member  of  the  Church,  and  had 
intense  Church  pride — "more  than  he  had  after 
he  joined  the  Church."  His  Methodist  friends 
and  his  family  persuaded  him  to  accept;  for 
Methodism  was  looked  down  on,  and  people  were 
saying  the  Methodists  could  not  get  men  of  their 
own  denomination  to  fill  the  chairs  in  their  new 
college.  His  nominal  salary  of  $1,200  was  never 
paid  in  full.  While  Professor  of  Physics  and 
Chemistry  at  Randolph-Macon,  he  acted  for  a 
time  also  as  Professor  of  Latin.  Professor  Sims 
had  been  elected  to  the  chair,  but  the  trustees 

of  College  refused  to  release  him  before 

the  end  of  the  year.  The  Latin  work  was  appor- 
tioned among  the  faculty,  Professor  Garland 
taking  the  highest  class.  There  were  only  two 
men  in  it,  and  they  were  reading  the  Annals,  or 
Histories,  of  Tacitus.  The  lesson  was  usually 
eight  pages,  in  a  text  without  notes.  Professor 
Garland  used  to  seat  himself  between  the  two 
students,  and  all  took  turns  in  reading,  each  a 


Doctor  Garland.  7 

page  at  a  time,  the  Professor  pausing  now  and 
then  to  elucidate  some  point.  Dr.  Garland  said 
that  he  had  never  had  such  literary  enjoyment  of 
a  Latin  author  as  then.  Can  any  one  imagine 
now  teaching  of  Latin  more  likely  to  be  inspiring 
than  that?  I  may  as  well  mention,  in  this  con- 
nection, that  a  copy  of  "Cicero  de  Officiis"  al- 
ways lay  upon  Dr.  Garland's  desk  in  the  Chan- 
cellor's office  at  Vanderbilt,  and  the  professors, 
as  they  entered  the  room  on  Tuesday  evenings, 
rarely  failed  to  find  him  reading  it.  He  did 
not  know,  he  said,  where  moral  sentiments  were 
more  attractively  expressed  than  there.  One  day 
I  found  him  asking  the  Latin  professor  the  exact 
shade  of  meaning  of  the  Latin  word  honestum. 
He  used  to  say  to  the  students  that  they  could 
read  the  British  poets  in  the  time  they  wasted  in 
idle  talk,  and  such  was  the  example  of  husband- 
ing his  time  that  he  set  to  faculty  and  students. 

But  to  return :  when  Dr.  Garland  became 
President  of  Randolph-Macon  College,  his  nom- 
inal salary  was  $1,500,  but  this  was  not  paid  m 
full.  Agents  had  been  in  the  field  for  fourteen 
years,  and  people  were  weary  of  continual  solici- 
tations. So  he  agreed  to  take  $1,200,  and  the 
professors  $1,000.  But  he  had  then  six  chil- 
dren, and  could  not  live  on  the  salary.  So  at 
the  end  of  his  thirteenth  year  at  Randolph-Macon 


8  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

he  resigned,  with  the  purpose  of  studying  law. 
He  studied  at  Nelson  Courthouse,  by  correspond- 
ence with  Beverley  Watkins  Leigh,  and  after  a 
year's  close  application  was  ready  for  the  bar, 
and  expecting  to  be  admitted  at  the  next  session 
of  the  Superior  Court.  He  had  already  made  ar- 
rangements with  a  lawyer,  who  got  plenty  of 
business,  but  who  was  a  poor  advocate,  to  go  into 
partnership  on  equal  terms.  He  was  then  in 
his  thirty-seventh  year.  But  before  he  was  ad- 
mitted to  the  bar,  Dr.  Manley,  President  of  the 
University  of  Alabama,  offered  him  a  chair  with 
$2,000  salary,  and  at  almost  the  same  time  he 
was  tendered  a  professorship  in  William  and 
Alary  College.  He  had  no  knowledge  of  the  in- 
tention to  offer  him  either  place.  In  his  whole 
life,  he  said,  he  had  never  turned  his  hand  to 
get  any  position.  Everything  had  come  unso- 
licited, and  this  now  gave  him  more  satisfaction 
than  anything  connected  with  his  public  career. 
He  could  feel  that  the  calls  had  been  providen- 
tial, especially  as  when  called  from  Washington 
College  to  Randolph-Macon,  and  again  from  the 
University  of  Mississippi  to  Vanderbilt,  his  in- 
clination to  remain  where  he  was  had  been  dia- 
metrically opposed  to  what  seemed  to  be  his 
duty.  He  could  not  see,  he  said,  how  a  preacher 
who  had  ever  stirred  a  finger  to  get  office — the 


Doctor  Garland.  9 

bishopric  or  anything  else — could  claim  that  it 
was  a  dispensation  of  Providence. 

One  day  in  the  autumn  of  1885  Dr.  Garland 
was  telling  me  how  he  made  the  trip  from  Vir- 
ginia to  Alabama,  when  called  to  Tuscaloosa. 
He  had  about  three  wagon-loads  of  negroes  to 
transport,  and  the  way  he  had  come  by  them  was 
this :  when  he  was  married  both  he  and  his  wife 
had  the  pick  of  the  slaves  of  their  respective 
families  for  house  servants.  They  had,  as  well 
as  I  remember,  three  young  women  and  a  driver. 
In  due  time  these  all  married  and  had  children. 
The  husbands  of  some  or  all  of  the  women  be- 
longed to  other  men,  and  when  he  was  going  to 
leave  he  told  the  women  he  would  not  separate 
them  from  their  husbands,  but  would  sell  them 
and  leave  them  with  their  husbands.  But  the 
women  refused  to  be  sold,  preferring  to  go  with 
"Master,"  even  if  they  had  to  leave  their  hus- 
bands ;  so  he  had  to  buy  the  husbands ;  for  the 
great  blot  on  the  institution  of  slavery,  he 
thought,  was  selling  husbands  away  from  their 
wives,  and  lice  versa.  When  he  reached  Ala- 
bama he  had  to  hire  out  all  these  negroes,  as  he 
had  nothing  for  them  to  do ;  but  they  were  a  con- 
tinual expense  to  him.  Their  employers  would 
treat  them  badly,  and  they  would  complain,  so 
that  he  would  have  to  hire  them  to  some  one 


io  'Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

else,  losing  all  benefit  from  the  first  contract. 
Then,  too,  the  employers,  not  owning  them, 
would  clothe  them  ill,  and  when  they  came  home 
to  spend  Christmas  he  would  have  to  clothe 
them.  Besides,  he  always  instructed  their  em- 
ployers, whenever  they  were  ill,  to  send  for  his 
family  physician  at  his  expense.  He  told  me  that 
on  this  journey  to  Alabama  a  favorite  nurse  fell 
ill  with  pneumonia  at  McMinnville,  Tenn.,  and 
he  stopped  ten  days  with  her,  hiring  a  man  to 
take  the  negroes  on  to  their  destination.  At  the 
end  of  ten  days,  the  woman  being  better,  he  got 
the  physician  to  take  her  to  his  house  and  care 
for  her  till  she  was  perfectly  well,  and  then  he 
sent  back  for  her.  When  the  war  began  his 
slaves  had  increased  to  sixty. 

As  I  met  Dr.  Garland  walking  in  the  campus 
one  morning  in  January,  1887,  he  said:  "Well, 
we  have  lost  one  of  our  best  citizens — Colonel 
Gale.  He  was  not  appreciated  at  his  true  worth, 
as  a  gentleman  of  culture,  as  well  of  the  highest 
integrity.''  That  led  him  then  to  talk  about  the 
gentlemen  of  the  olden  time — before  the  war. 
"I'll  venture  to  say,"  he  remarked,  "that  there 
never  was  a  community  equal  in  intelligence  and 
refinement  and  rational  enjoyment  of  life  to 
what  was  known  as  'the  Fork  of  Green,'  in  Ala- 
bama, a  whole  precinct  owned  by  thirteen  men." 


Doctor  Garland.  11 

Mr.  ,  he  said,  was  almost  a  perfect  man,  a 

gentleman  of  high  culture,  wide  reading — no 
man  better  acquainted  with  English  literature — a 
beneficent  influence  in  the  whole  neighborhood. 

When  questioned  about  Mrs. he  answered : 

"My  experience  is,  you  can  never  take  as  the 
highest  exponent  of  the  domestic  life  and  vir- 
tues a  woman  that  is  childless.  A  home  where 
there  have  never  been  children,  where  the  pat- 
tering of  little  feet  has  never  been  heard,  has 
not  felt  the  best  influence  of  home."  I  said  to 
him :  "Doctor,  it  seems  to  me  the  great  thing  to 
be  done  is  to  put  into  literature  such  a  man  as 

Mr.   ,   the   best    our    civilization    could   do. 

Page's  'Colonel'  in  Tolly'  is  true  to  life,  but  the 
'Colonel'  is  eccentric,  not  the  normal  man.  What 
we  want  is  the  rationally  beneficent  life  of  a 

Mr.    portrayed.      But    the    trouble    is    we 

younger  people  don't  knoiv  those  old  times." 
"Yes,"  said  the  Doctor,  "they  will  never  come 
back  again." 

It  must  have  been  some  time  in  the  autumn 
of  1887  that  the  Doctor  was  denouncing,  one 
Wednesday  morning  in  chapel,  the  wearing  of 
pistols.  "Only  cowards  and  bullies  wear  pis- 
tols," said  he.  "When  I  was  a  boy  we  used  to 
get  mad  and  fight ;  but  we  fought  fair ;  we  struck 
straight  from  the  shoulder,  and  one  got  the  oth- 


12  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

er  down  and  pummeled  him  till  he  said  'Enough !' 
— and  a  fellow  would  have  been  disgraced  who 
struck  a  blow  after  his  prostrate  foe  cried 
'Enough !' ':  "We  fought,"  said  the  old  gentle- 
man, warming  up  with  the  recollection  of  his 
boyhood  days,  "and  I  have  yet  to  see  that  there 
is  any  great  harm  in  fighting  that  way." 

February  22,  1888,  I  went  to  consult  the  Doc- 
tor about  the  best  books  for  Sunday  reading, 
some  one  having  written  me  for  my  opinion.  He 
told  me  that  the  -Bible  had  always  been  his  Sun- 
day reading,  even  his  Sunday  study.  He  read 
the  commentaries  also,  especially  those  of  the 
Germans,  which  he  praised  very  highly.  Some- 
body's Meletemata  he  was  especially  fond  of,  for, 
besides  other  things,  it  helped  him  to  keep  up  his 
Latin.  He  read  the  Bible  on  other  days — the 
first  thing  in  the  morning  and  last  thing  at  night 
— did  not  feel  comfortable  unless  he  had  done 
this;  it  had  become  a  habit,  and  his  conscience 
was  as  tender  about  it  as  the  -little  boy's  who  had 
to  get  out  of  bed  to  say  his  prayers.  But  Sun- 
days he  studied  the  Bible.  The  only  proper  way 
of  studying  it,  he  thought,  was  the  comparative, 
by  subjects — have  a  concordance  and  compare  all 
that  is  said  everywhere  about  the  subject.  Speak- 
ing of  the  Bible  class  that  he  had  at  Oxford, 
Mississippi,  for  six  years  or  more  before  going  to 


Doctor  Garland.  13 

Vanderbilt,  he  said  that  he  studied  for  this  class 
during  the  week  harder  than  for  any  other  duty. 
There  were  sixty  or  more  in  the  class,  and  men 
had  written  him  since  that  their  religious  lives 
dated  from  those  meetings. 

One  Wednesday,  the  next  October,  he  was  ad- 
vising the  students  to  read  the  Bible,  and,  after 
begging  pardon  for  a  personal  allusion,  said  that 
his  mother  exacted  a  promise  from  him  when  he 
started  to  college  to  read  his  Bible  regularly. 
"That  promise  saved  me,"  said  he ;  "for  I  tried 
to  be  an  infidel.  I  formed  a  club  to  read  Boling- 
broke  and  Shaftesbury  and  Voltaire,  and  other 
noted  infidel  writers,  and  I  should  have  become 
an  infidel  but  for  my  promise  to  my  mother  to 
read  the  Bible." 

Happening  to  mention,  one  day  that  spring, 
the  way  in  which  he  got  his  insurance  policy  re- 
newed after  the  war,  he  said  it  had  always 
seemed  to  him  to  be  providential.  "I  may  be 
mistaken  in  my  views  of  these  things,"  said  he, 
"but  they  give  me  comfort."  He  went  on  to  say 
that  he  thought  he  had  been  providentially  guid- 
ed many  times  in  his  life.  He  had  never  sought 
any  office,  position,  or  honor.  All  had  come  to 
him  unsought,  and  many  times  he  had  felt 
obliged  to  obey  calls  which  were  contrary  to  his 
wishes.  It  was  a  great  comfort  to  him  to  feel 


14  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

that  he  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Lord,  who  would 
do  for  him  what  was  best.  "I  have  no  anxiety, 
or  concern,"  said  he,  "no  fear  of  death.  It 
makes  no  difference  whether  it  comes  next  month 
or  next  year.  I  am  never  sad  or  lonely,  but  re- 
signed to  whatever  may  come.  It  is  a  great  com- 
fort to  feel  so."  As  far  back  as  1887  Mrs.  Gar- 
land said  he  talked  every  day  as  if  that  might 
be  his  last.  He  begged  her  once  the  year  before, 
if  ever  she  saw  that  he  was  failing  mentally  to 
tell  him  plainly,  that  he  might  resign.  He  un- 
derstood that  if  he  began  to  fail  he  would  be 
less  able  than  ever  to  recognize  it,  and  could 
not  bear  the  thought  of  holding  on  after  he  had 
become  inefficient. 

December  6,  1891,  I  found  the  Doctor  study- 
ing his  Bible.  He  soon  drifted  into  reminiscences 
of  Dr.  Olin.  He  considered  him  the  greatest  and 
best  man  he  was  ever  intimately  connected  with, 
one  of  the  few  men — he  could  count  all  on  the 
fingers  of  one  hand — who  did  not  seem  smaller 
as  he  got  closer  to  them.  He  had  never  known 
a  man  who  had  such  power  over  an  audience; 
not  even  Clay,  or  Webster,  or  Prentiss,  equaled 
Dr.  Olin  in  this  respect.  This  power  he  thought 
was  the  direct  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  in 
which  the  man  Olin  seemed  absolutely  lost.  He 
had  none  of  the  graces  of  oratory,  was  awkward 


Doctor  Garland.  15 

in  person  and  gesture;  but  there  was  a  felicity 
and  perspicuity  of  expression  that  Dr.  Garland 
had  never  known  the  like  of.  He  had  never 
heard  Dr.  Olin  quote  from  or  refer  to  anybody's 
view  of  a  question  in  a  sermon ;  there  was  noth- 
ing to  indicate  that  any  of  his  ideas  came  from 
any  other  source  than  his  own  mind;  but  there 
was  a  power  which  made  Olin  forget  self,  and 
enthralled  men.  Bishop  Pierce  was  more  like 
Prentiss,  he  thought ;  more  rhetorical.  He  could 
take  any  ordinary  thought  and  dress  it  up  in  a 
style  and  language  that  made  it  appear  beautiful. 
But  he  did  not  strike  so  deep  as  Olin,  nor  was 
he  so  original.  He  was  handsome  and  gracious 
and  graceful,  a  consummate  orator.  Of  living 
Southern  Methodist  ministers,  he  considered 
Bishop  Wilson  the  greatest  preacher. 

On  September  22,  1892,  the  second  day  of  the 
session,  Dr.  Garland,  in  making  some  remarks  to 
the  students  in  chapel,  said  he  was  forcibly  re- 
minded of  the  time  when  he  himself  had  entered 
college  at  the  age  of  sixteen.  His  mother  on 
parting  with  him,  besides  giving  him  a  Bible 
with  the  injunction  to  make  it  his  counselor,  had 
urged  him  to  be  especially  careful  about  the  asso- 
ciations he  formed.  His  father,  he  remarked, 
had  been  an  example  to  him,  but  "his  mother 
was  his  teacher."  In  reply  to  his  question,  how 


1 6  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

was  he  to  know  who  were  worthy,  his  mother 
replied :  "Well,  my  son,  there  are  many  little 
marks  that  indicate  character.  Notice  whether 
a  young  man  avoids  profanity  and  is  clean- 
mouthed.  Then,  too,  remark  whether  one  ob- 
serves the  little  proprieties — whether  one  cleans 
his  feet  before  entering  a  house,  or  removes  his 
hat  before  entering  a  room.  These  little  things 
show  whether  one  is  well  bred  or  not.  And  be 
polite  and  gentlemanly."  The  Doctor  said  he  had 
found  these  suggestions  invaluable  in  forming 
college  associations.  He  could  remember  only 
one  occasion  when  he  had  knowingly  broken  a 
rule  in  college.  He  looked  back  on  his  college 
days  as  the  happiest  of  his  whole  life.  The  next 
day  he  remarked  from  the  platform :  "I  have 
been  connected  with  colleges  and  universities  all 
my  life,  but  I  have  never  known  such  pleasant 
relations  to  exist  between  students  and  professors 
as  exist  here." 

That  same  September  Dr.  Garland  was  talking 
to  me  about  his  little  granddaughter,  a  beauti- 
ful child  of  three  years,  who  had  just  died  of 
pneumonia.  "It  is  better  so,"  said  he.  "God 
knows  best.  If  we  knew  all,  I  am  sure  we  should 
say  that  it  is  better  for  the  children  who  die  in 
infancy.  If  I  had  my  choice,  with  my  experience 
in  life,  I  would  choose  to  have  died  in  infan- 


Doctor  Garland.  17 

cy."  That  was  the  feeling  of  Demosthenes.  The 
trials  of  his  later  years  forced  from  him  the  bit- 
ter reflection  that  could  he  be  offered  again  the 
way  to  the  bema  or  to  the  tomb,  he  would  choose 
the  latter. 

Dear,  good,  simple,  sincere  Dr.  Garland!  His 
image  comes  back  to  me  more  than  any  other 
man's  from  the  old  Vanderbilt  days.  There  will 
never  be  another  college  president  like  him  in 
America.  There  was  plain  living  and  honest 
thinking.  He  had  no  office  hours,  except  on 
Wednesday  mornings,  the  day  after  faculty 
meetings.  He  received  members  of  the  faculty, 
as  well  as  students,  usiially  in  his  bedroom, 
which  was  also  his  sitting-room ;  and  there  he 
might  be  found  in  cool  weather  before  a  coal 
fire,  in  warmer  weather  at  the  window,  looking 
over  a  text-book,  studying  the  Bible,  or  reading 
a  newspaper.  In  very  pleasant  weather  his  fa- 
vorite place  was  the  bench  under  a  magnolia  tree 
at  his  front  door.  There  passers-by  might  see 
any  fine  afternoon  the  man  who  had  been  presi- 
dent of  three  colleges  or  universities,  who  had 
been  professor  over  sixty  years,  quietly  read- 
ing his  Nashville  Banner.  Go  up  and  address 
him — anybody  might  always  do  that — and  you 
would  see  raised  to  meet  you  the  face  of  a 

2 


i8  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

good  man,  a  face  that  indicated  a  simple  and 
pure  heart. 

What  made  him  a  great  old  man  ?  He  was  to 
the  last  a  great  teacher,  his  best  students  always 
said — though  not  abreast,  perhaps,  with  all  the 
very  latest  advances  in  physics — clear  in  exposi- 
tion, concise  and  direct  in  statement,  forcible  in 
presentation,  having  in  the  class-room,  as  on  the 
public  platform,  a  ready  command  of  idiomatic, 
forceful,  elegant  English.  But  other  teachers 
there  have  been  with  such  qualities  who  yet  were 
not  great.  Dr.  Garland  was  not  at  Vanderbilt, 
and  probably  never  had  been,  a  great  executive 
officer;  and  he  was  too  little  in  touch  and  sym- 
pathy with  the  energy  and  rush  of  American  life 
of  to-day  to  keep  his  college,  like  a  locomotive, 
always  going,  or  ready  to  go.  He  managed  stu- 
dents well,  because  he  sympathized  with  and 
trusted  them,  was  gentle  and  kind,  and  because 
his  own  example  of  unostentatious  fidelity  was 
so  powerful,  though  silent,  a  supporter  of  his  ad- 
monitions ;  because  they  revered  him,  and  so 
obeyed  him.  But  other  college  presidents  have 
governed  students  as  well  without  being  great. 

As  chairman  of  the  faculty,  he  was  superior  to 
any  man  I  have  ever  known.  He  could  sit  quiet- 
ly and  allow  the  fullest  expression  in  debate  of 
views  with  which  he  did  not  agree;  and  even 


Doctor  Garland.  19 

after  he  had  expressed  his  preference,  if,  as  often 
happened,  the  faculty  was  against  him,  he  al- 
ways made  faculty  action  his  own,  and  carried 
out  that  action  as  loyally  as  if  he  had  supported 
it.  I  never"  knew  him  oppose  faculty  action  be- 
fore the  trustees  but  once.  This  was  on  the 
proposition  to  admit  young  women  regularly  to 
the  university ;  and  I  doubt  not  this  action  of  his 
was  due  to  the  fact  that  the  trustees  asked  him 
for  his  private  judgment  in  the  matter.  He  was 
too  honest  and  sincere  not  to  give  it,  under  such 
circumstances.  Another  great  quality  he  had  in 
this  connection:  he  never  talked  outside  of  fac- 
ulty action — not  even  to  his  wife,  I  have  heard 
him  say. 

After  all,  I  cannot  think  of  any  single  thing 
that  he  said  or  did,  of  any  mental  quality  or 
course  of  action  in  office,  that  of  itself  alone 
marked  him  as  great.  What,  then,  will  explain 
his  power?  Doubtless  I  have  already  uncon- 
sciously told  the  secret.  It  was  his  character — 
the  character  of  a  simple,  kindly,  gentle,  truth- 
ful, noble  man.  In  this  generation  we  cannot 
fully  appreciate  perhaps  the  value  and  influence 
of  such  a  character  as  Dr.  Garland's  on  suscepti- 
ble young  men.  Most  parents  who  send  boys  to 
college  are  far  more  concerned  about  a  son's  de- 
velopment in  virtue,  manliness,  fidelity,  honesty, 


2O  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

than  in  mere  technical  scholarship;  and  it  is  a 
matter  of  supreme  importance  that  there  should 
be  in  a  college  faculty  at  least  one  model  char- 
acter to  whom  students  can  look  up.  For  the 
development  of  sound  morals  in  a  community  of 
students  nothing  equals  this.  I  remember  say- 
ing once  to  Bishop  Keener,  referring  to  the  peri- 
odical complaint  of  preachers  that  we  had  no 
"revivals"  at  Vanderbilt,  that  we  had  something 
better  in  the  godly  life  and  unassailable  probity 
of  Dr.  Garland ;  that  in  the  long  run  it  would  be 
found  that  young  men  had  built  upon  the  evi- 
dence afforded  by  such  an  example  of  right  liv- 
ing, and  would  amid  the  storm  and  stress  of  aft- 
er life  find  the  memory  of  such  a  life  a  stronger 
support  to  faith,  a  more  potent  weapon  with 
which  to  combat  doubt,  than  almost  anything 
else  could  furnish.  No  wonder  that  Bishop  Har- 
ris, of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  told  Dr. 
Tillett  that  the  character  and  example  of  Dr. 
Garland  had  been  the  most  important  influence 
in  his  life. 

Blessed  are  the  men  whose  privilege  it  is  to 
look  back  over  their  college  days  and  see  rise  up 
before  their  minds  the  image  of  this  guileless 
man,  this  faithful  teacher,  this  sincere  Christian. 
As  colleges  and  the  world  get  farther  away  from 
the  simplicity  and  serenity  of  such  a  nature  and 


Doctor  Garland.  21 

such  surroundings  as  his,  as  men  get  older  and 
busier  and  more  honored  and  more  prosperous, 
the  more  will  they  appreciate  this  simple  na- 
ture's nobleman;  and  they  will  sometimes  almost 
wonder  if  it  was  not  a  beautiful  dream,  and  their 
Vanderbilt  college  days  of  the  seventies  or  eight- 
ies, or  early  nineties,  an  idyl  of  the  imagination. 

One  might  say  that  I  have  idealized  Dr.  Gar- 
land; and  so  I  have  doubtless  to  some  extent. 
And  yet  I  am  sure  I  have  given  only  feeble  ex- 
pression of  what  was  noble  and  good  in  him.  I 
put  doubtless  a  higher  estimate  upon  him,  now 
that  he  is  dead,  than  even  while  I  was  with  him. 
But  the  Doctor  was  entirely  too  simple  for  those 
beside  him  to  value  his  simplicity  and  goodness 
at  their  true  worth  till  one  realized  that  both 
were  gone  with  him  from  earth. 

Now  thy  brows  are  cold, 
I  see  thee  what  thou  art,  and  know 
Thy  likeness  to  the  wise  below, 

Thy  kindred  with  the  great  of  old. 


II. 

BISHOP   McTYEIRE. 

HOLLAND  NIMMONS  MCTYEIRE,  D.D.,  Senior 
Bishop  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
South,  died  at  Vanderbilt  University,  February 
15,  1889.  He  was  born  in  Barnwell  county,  South 
Carolina,  in  1824,  grew  up  on  a  farm,  and  at 
fourteen  entered  the  old  Cokesbury  Academy  in 
Abbeville  county,  S.  C.,  to  prepare  for  college. 
While  there  he  became  a  member  of  the  Church, 
but  he  could  never  name  the  day  nor  the  place 
of  his  conversion,  and  could  not  fail,  of  course, 
at  that  time  to  be  worried  by  the  brethren  who 
claimed,  "If  you  can't  tell  the  place  where  and 
the  time  when,  you  haven't  got  it."  He  was 
graduated  at  twenty  from  Randolph-Macon  Col- 
lege, Virginia,  then  under  the  presidency  of  Dr. 
L.  C.  Garland,  afterwards  first  Chancellor  of 
Vanderbilt  University.  There  is  no  tradition  of 
remarkable  college  promise  in  the  young  Mc- 
Tyeire.  He  finished  college  in  1844,  the  year  of 
the  division  of  the  Methodist  Church,  and,  feel- 
ing called  to  preach,  at  once  joined  the  Virginia 
Conference  and  was  appointed  to  the  old  town 
of  Williamsburg.  He  must  have  given  early 

(22) 


BISHOP    HOLLAND    N.    M'TYEIRE. 


Bishop  McTyeire.  23 

promise  of  usefulness  in  the  ministry,  for  two 
years  later  he  was  transferred  to  the  Alabama 
Conference  and  stationed  at  Mobile,  taking  the 
place  made  vacant  by  the  election  of  Dr.  Thomas 
O.  Summers  to  the  associate  editorship  of  the 
Southern  Christian  Advocate.  About  three 
years  later  he  was  transferred  to  New  Orleans, 
and  with  Dr.  John  C.  Keener  had  a  large  share 
in  planting  Methodism  in  that  city.  The  yel- 
low fever  even  did  not  drive  him  from  his  post, 
and  the  physician  who  came  to  New  Orleans  to 
see  him  die  brought  him  through  the  dread 
disease.  In  1851  he  started  the  New  Orleans 
Christian  Advocate,  which  at  once  became  a 
power  in  the  Church,  although  he  had  to  divide 
his  time  between  editorial  and  pastoral  duties. 
During  a  great  part  of  this  period  he  served  a 
large  colored  congregation  in  New  Orleans.  At 
thirty  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  General 
Conference,  and  four  years  later,  1858,  was 
made  editor  of  the  Nashville  Christian  Advo- 
cate, the  connectional  organ  of  his  Church.  In 
1862,  when  the  Federal  army  entered  Nashville, 
he  went  to  Alabama,  and  was  stationed  at  Mont- 
gomery. In  May,  1866,  at  the  New  Orleans 
General  Conference,-  he  was  elected  bishop. 
From  his  ordination  he  was  considered  the  great 
parliamentarian  of  the  Church,  and  those  best 


24  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

capable  of  judging  considered  him  an  ecclsias- 
tical  statesman.  At  his  death  he  lacked  a  little 
of  having  served  twenty-three  years  as  bishop. 

Many  able  men  regard  him  as  the  strongest 
man  whom  the  Southern  Methodist  Church  has 
produced,  and  there  can  be  no  question  that  as 
a  writer  he  had  no  equal  among  his  brethren. 
A  great  part  of  his  best  writing  is  scattered 
about  in  the  various  Church  papers;  but  his  last 
and  greatest  literary  work,  the  "History  of 
Methodism,"  shows  the  style  and  power  of  the 
man.  His  first  literary  effort,  outside  of  news- 
paper work,  was  a  prize  essay  on  the  "Duties 
of  Christian  Masters."  He  wrote  also  a  "Cate- 
chism on  Church  Government,"  and  a  "Manual 
of  the  Discipline  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  South."  Elected  Bishop  within  a  year 
after  the  war  ended,  he  could  not  but  have  much 
to  do  with  shaping  the  readjustment  of  his 
Church  to  the  new  order  of  things  in  the  South, 
and  many  believe  that  his  was  the  foremost  part 
in  the  great  work.  But  his  memory  will  doubt- 
less live  longest  in  connection  with  Vanderbilt 
University.  He  and  others  had  planned  such 
an  institution,  a  prominent  department  of  which 
was  to  be  a  theological  seminary,  but  it  was 
impossible  to  raise  the  money  to  endow  it. 
Finally,  however,  family  connections  brought 


Bishop  McTyeire.  25 

Bishop  McTyeire  into  acquaintance  with  Com- 
modore Vanderbilt,  who  was  easily  induced  to 
embrace  the  Bishop's  project.  The  story  of  the 
wealthy  New  Yorker's  princely  gift  toward  the 
education  of  Southern  youth  is  doubtless  famil- 
iar to  all  who  care  to  know  it,  but  it  is  not  gen- 
erally known  that  Mr.  Vanderbilt  asked  the 
Bishop  to  resign  his  office  and  accept  the  presi- 
dency of  the  new  university  at  a  salary  of  ten 
thousand  dollars  a  year.  When  the  loyal  church- 
man had  declined  this  proposition,  the  Commo- 
dore insisted  that  he  accept  the  presidency  of 
the  Board  of  Trustees,  and  invested  him  with 
veto  power,  saying:  "I  want  you  to  sustain  the 
same  relation  to  the  university  that  I  do  to  the 
New  York  Central."  Commodore  Vanderbilt 
always  expressed  the  conviction  that  he  had 
found  the  right  man  to  manage  the  great  trust. 
The  Commodore's  gifts  to  Vanderbilt  Univer- 
sity reached  $1,000,000  before  his  death;  his  son, 
W.  H.  Vanderbilt,  gave  in  all  about  $500,000; 
and  Mr.  Cornelius  Vanderbilt  added  to  the  do- 
nations of  father  and  grandfather  a  handsome 
gift  to  the  library  and  an  elegant  new  building.1 

1Mr.  W.  K.  Vanderbilt  has  made  two  notable  gifts 
to  the  university :  Kissam  Hall,  in  memory  of  his 
mother,  at  a  cost  of  about  $138,000;  and  later  a  con- 
tribution of  $150,000  to  the  general  building  fund. 


26  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

This  great  trust  Bishop  McTyeire  so  managed 
that  some  have  disliked  him,  more  have  admired 
him,  most  who  were  close  to  him  have  loved 
him,  and  all  have  acknowledged  that,  though 
some  mistakes  might  have  been  made,  each 
year's  increasing  success  was  demonstrating  how 
wisely  and  broadly  he  had  planned.  He  has 
had  the  greatest  opportunity  ever  offered  fo  a 
Southern  man ;  and  when  the  history  of  eduqa- 
tion  in  the  South  is  properly  written,  he  will 
stand  first  in  this  respect  in  his  Church,  and 
perhaps  in  the  section  to  which  he  belonged. 

His  was  a  constructive  mind,  and  nothing  so 
delighted  him  as  to  help  push  forward  some 
great  work,  whether  an  enterprise  of  the 
Church,  or  some  great  building  intended  at  once 
for  ornament  and  usefulness.  As  he  looked  up- 
on the  beautiful  university  grounds,  essentially 
his  work,  he  could  intensely  sympathize  with 
Faust,  who,  viewing  in  imagination  his  last 
work  complete,  a  wilderness  reclaimed, 

"Im  Innern  hier  ein  paradiesisch  Land," 

could  not  help  exclaiming,  "Verweile  doch,  du 
bist  so  schon !"  And  the  Bishop's  joy  in  his 
creation  would  be  intensified  by  the  thought 
that  the  remains  of  the  old  Federal  earthworks 
by  the  side  of  his  house  were  typical  of  the  past 


Bishop  McTyeire.  27 

of  his  people,  while  the  beautiful  grounds  all 
around  were  a  prophecy  of  the  future  in  store 
for  them. 

The  yard  in  front  of  his  house  is  ornamented 
with  beautiful  flower  beds,  shrubbery  of  various 
kinds,  magnolia  and  several  other  varieties  of 
trees,  and  carpeted  most  of  the  year  with  blue 
grass.  It  would  be  hard  to  find  a  handsomer 
yard.  The  flowers  were  Mrs.  McTyeire's,  but 
the  trees  were  the  Bishop's  pets  and  pride.  In- 
deed, he  was  as  fond  of  growing  trees  as  Mr. 
Gladstone  of  felling  them.  In  the  early  spring 
a  not  unusual  sight  on  the  campus  was  a  stout, 
strongly  built  gentleman,  with  closely  cropped 
gray  hair  and  beard,  and  wearing  a  long,  gray 
study  gown,  with  his  long  pruning  chisel  and 
mallet,  trimming  up  the  trees  that  are  scattered 
over  the  seventy-six  ..acres  of  ground  in  the 
campus. 

The  Bishop's  favorite  tree  was  a  beautiful 
wide-spreading  maple,  just  to  the  left  of  his 
front  door,  and  there  he  spent  much  of  his 
leisure  time  in  warm  weather.  "How  I'd  like  to 
be  sitting  now  under  the  maple  with  'Spider' 
[his  dog]  at  my  feet,"  he  wrote  once  to  his  little 
granddaughter  from  the  far  West.  Those  who 
knew  him  well  would  not  be  inclined  to  suppose 
that  the  time  he  spent  under  the  maple  was  all 


28  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

leisure  time.  It  is  doubtless  true  that  there  he 
did  much  of  his  thinking,  there  he  planned  for 
the  university,  there  he  dwelt  upon  the  care  of 
the  churches,  there  came  to  him  some  of  those 
characteristic  strong  thoughts  which  serious 
men  came  to  expect  in  every  sermon  he 
preached.  He  had  always  a  bench  or  two  un- 
der that  tree  besides  his  own  rustic  seat,  and 
never  showed  any  irritation  at  being  interrupted 
in  his  meditations  by  any  one  who  desired  to  see 
him.  As  he  sat  there  in  the  afternoon  with  his 
face  to  the  east,  his  eye  ran  across  the  old  com- 
mon, which  the  proximity  of  the  university  is 
fast  changing  into  a  handsome  suburb,  along 
the  line  of  the  breastworks  thrown  up  by  the 
Federals  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  un- 
til it  reached  the  old  Federal  fort,  "Negley,"  so 
boldly  outlined  against  the  sky. 

The  house  is  a  large,  two-story  brick  man- 
sion, with  every  evidence  of  comfort,  but  none 
of  display.  It  was  the  abode  of  hospitality.  The 
Bishop  had  two  work  rooms.  Much  of  his  read- 
ing was  done  in  his  dining-room,  but  his  heavy 
work  was  performed  in  the  little  study  that  looks 
out  toward  Fort  Negley  and  the  east.  He  was 
not,  perhaps,  a  reader  of  many  books — he  was 
too  busy  for  that — and  his  collection  of  books 
was  not  very  large.  But  if  you  look  through  his 


Bishop  McTyeire.  29 

library  you  find  every  evidence  of  careful  read- 
ing. The  pages  of  books  consulted  in  making 
the  "History  of  Methodism"  bear  many  index 
fingers  pointing  to  marked  passages ;  and  the 
margins  of  his  books  are  often  filled  with  obser- 
vations made  during  his  reading — a  habit  much 
to  be  commended  in  a  thinking  man.  In  this  lit- 
tle study,  which  is  perhaps  not  larger  than  ten 
by  twelve  feet,  he  wrote  the  "History  of  Meth- 
odism." Here  were  his  books,  here  he  wrote  his 
letters,  and  here,  doubtless,  many  a  well-laid  plan 
for  college  or  Church  took  definite  form  on  paper. 
He  did  not  murmur  that  he  was  cut  down 
when  every  one  was  predicting  for  him  at  least 
fifteen  years  of  fruitful  labor.  His  strong  con- 
stitution was  slowly  undermined  by  the  insid- 
ious disease.  It  was  months  before  he  was 
brought  to  his  bed,  three  months  more  before 
the  end  came;  but  he  lay  there,  taking  the  live- 
liest interest  in  friends  or  matters  of  Church  or 
university,  sure  that  he  was  sinking,  but  never 
repining.  He  never  even  expressed  a  wish  to 
get  well,  except  when  he  prayed  that  if  consist- 
ent with  God's  will  the  many  prayers  offered 
for  his  recovery  might  be  answered,  in  order 
that  his  friends'  faith  in  prayer  might  be 
strengthened.  He  took  the  sacrament  the  after- 
noon before  his  death,  "not  in  anticipation  of 


30  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

the  end,"  he  explained,  "but  for  the  comfort  of 
my  soul."  Then,  after  a  night  of  horrible  but 
patient  suffering,  he  greeted  the  light  free  from 
pain,  heard  the  first  college  bell  of  the  day — re- 
marking that  he  himself  had  hung  that  bell — 
fifteen  minutes  later  uttered  the  one  word 
"Peace!"  and  became  unconscious.  At  8:52 
A.M.,  as  faculty  and  students  were  assembled 
in  the  university  chapel  for  morning  worship, 
he  fell  asleep  as  softly  as  a  child. 

He  had  said  one  day  to  his  wife:  "I  like  Dr. 
McFerrin's  idea;  don't  buy  me  new  clothes,  but 
bury  me  in  something  I've  preached  in."  He 
had  also  expressed  the  wish  that  only  the  burial 
service  of  his  Church  be  read  over  him ;  that  the 
coffin  be  carried  without  a  hearse  the  short  dis- 
tance to  the  grave  on  the  grounds ;  that  the 
negroes  in  the  employ  of  the  university  be  al- 
lowed to  dig  his  grave  and  the  students  to  fill  it 
up.  And  his  wish  was  strictly  obeyed.  Six  of 
his  episcopal  colleagues  stood  beside  his  grave, 
and  a  great  concourse  of  people  witnessed  the 
last  simple  rites. 

RESPONSE  MADE  AT  THE   VANDERBILT  ALUMNI 
BANQUET,  JUNE  15,  1908. 

I  came  here  in  the  early  days,  twenty-six 
years  aeo.  and  two  figures  loom  out  of  the 


Bishop  McTyeire.  31 

mists  of  the  foretime.  In  the  course  of  time 
most  of  us  who  worked  here  will  be  completely 
forgotten.  But  not  the  first  President  of  the 
Board  of  Trust,  nor  the  first  Chancellor.  When 
on  February  15,  1889,  just  after  chapel,  word 
was  sent  round  to  the  various  class-rooms  by 
the  Chancellor  that  the  President  of  the  Board 
had  crossed  the  river,  I  said  to  my  class  that 
the  university  could  never  again  be  called  upon 
to  suffer  such  a  loss  as  the  Bishop's  death.  I 
still  think  so.  After  nineteen  years,  during 
which  I  have  seen  many  men  of  great  force,  I 
still  consider  Bishop  McTyeire  the  strongest 
man  I  ever  lived  close  to.  He  was  a  born  leader 
of  men.  He  and  Col.  William  Preston  Johnston 
met  once  in  a  railway  car.  Neither  knew  the 
other,  and  when  they  were  introduced  Colonel 
Johnston  said:  "I  took  you  for  a  general." 
"And  I  took  you  for  a  clergyman,"  said  Bishop 
McTyeire.  They  were  both  right  in  their  in- 
stinct. The  Bishop  would  have  been  a  general 
if  he  had  gone  to  the  front  in  the  Civil  War. 
He  was  a  great  business  man,  too.  "You  have 
missed  your  calling,  sir,"  Commodore  Vander- 
bilt  said  to  him  when  he  met  him ;  "you  ought 
to  have  been  a  railroad  man."  It  was  perfectly 
natural,  then,  that  the  Commodore,  when  he 
had  decided  to  give  money  to  found  an  institu- 


32  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

tion  of  learning  among  his  wife's  people,  should 
have  put  the  Bishop  at  the  head  of  it.  That  was 
wise  prevision  on  the  part  of  Commodore  Van- 
derbilt.  He  knew  a  good  man  when  he  saw  him. 
By  his  gift  the  Commodore  became  the  ever-to- 
be  gratefully  remembered  founder  of  this  uni- 
versity. But  its  creator  was  the  Bishop.  He 
not  only  secured  the  funds,  but  chose  as  the 
seat  of  the  university  the  city  of  Nashville,  un- 
questionably the  fittest  locality  in  all  the  South- 
land for  a  great  institution  of  learning  which  was 
to  be  not  only  a  center  of  culture  but  an  ireni- 
con  or  peace-bond  between  the  two  lately  es- 
tranged sections  of  the  country.  And  it  is  a 
queenly  city  in  a  beautiful  land — the  spot  that  I 
love  best  in  all  this  world.  "This  is  God's  own 
country!"  exclaimed  my  friend  Judge  Woods, 
in  the  spring  of  1887,  as  he  stood  at  a  window 
on  the  third  floor  of  University  Hall  and  looked 
out  east  and  north  and  west.  This  glorious 
campus  was  his  selection,  too.  The  old  oaks  be- 
tween Wesley  Hall  and  Chancellor  Garland's  res- 
idence were  here  then ;  but  most  of  the  ground 
was  a  cornfield,  and  it  required  a  landscape 
artist's  instinct  to  see  what  could  be  made  of  it. 
"Are  you  going  to  put  the  university  in  this 
cornfield?"  asked  Mrs.  McTveire  in  dismay  the 
first  time  she  saw  the  grounds.  "Never  mind, 


Bishop  McTyeire.  33 

mother,"  said  the  Bishop ;  "wait  till  you  see  what 
can  be  made  of  it."  He  was  a  builder  and  plant- 
er. He  chose  the  sites  of  all  the  first  buildings, 
and  saw  them  go  up  brick  by  brick.  Under  his 
eye  the  drives  and  walks  were  laid  out,  flower 
beds  were  made,  and  a  hundred  varieties  of  trees 
were  planted.  It  was  supposed  that  many  of  the 
young  trees  would  die,  and  allowance  was  made 
for  that  in  the  planting.  But  ninety-seven  per 
cent,  of  them  lived,  and  so  after  a  few  years  they 
had  to  be  thinned  out.  The  planting  had  been 
done  under  his  direction,  and  even  Mr.  Douglas 
did  not  dare  to  cut  down  a  young  tree  without 
the  Bishop's  permission.  A  friend  from  the  city 
came  through  the  grounds  one  day  when  a  clump 
of  fine  young  trees  was  being  thinned  out. 
"Don't  you  hate  to  see  those  fine  young  trees  go 
down,  Bishop?"  he  asked.  "I  don't  see  it,  sir," 
the  Bishop  replied.  "I  can't  stand  it;  I  have  to 
turn  my  back."  He  loved  the  trees  and  grass 
and  flowers ;  and  as  he  loved  them,  so  he  loved 
the  birds  and  the  children  that  came  and  throve 
on  these  grounds  as  naturally  as  birds  and  grass. 
Older  people  were  sometimes  afraid  of  him. 
He  was  the  autocrat,  some  of  the  grown  folks 
said.  But  the  little  ones  weren't  afraid  of  him. 
When  he  drove  through  the  grounds  with  "Kitty 
Clover,"  the  children  ran  to  meet  him ;  and  he 
3 


34  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

would  stop  and  let  them  clamber  up  on  the  seat 
beside  him,  in  his  lap,  fill  the  foot  of  the  buggy 
and  the  seat  behind ;  and  then  he  would  drive 
round  and  round,  the  little  ones  shouting  and 
screaming  with  delight.  We  missed  our  little 
boy  of  two  years  one  day  in  our  first  year,  when 
we  lived  in  Wesley  Hall,  and  after  a  frantic 
search  found  him  seated  by  the  Bishop  at  the 
dinner  table.  He  had  got  tired  of  Wesley  Hall 
fare  served  in  the  room  upstairs,  and  had  run 
off  to  the  Bishop's  to  get  something  good  to  eat. 
That  same  little  boy,  at  eight  years,  represented 
the  children's  feeling  when  he  said,  "I  believe 
next  to  papa  I  loved  Bishop  best."  Oh,  no !  chil- 
dren were  not  afraid  of  him.  They  loved  him 
and  knew  he  loved  them.  If  older  people  could 
always  have  seen  as  clearly ! 

He  was  a  strong  man;  a  natural  fighter.  It 
has  been  said  that  the  bench  of  bishops  favored 
his  election  to  the  episcopate  to  get  him  off  the 
floor;  they  were  afraid  of  him.  A  portrait  of 
him  painted  when  he  was  just  elected  bishop 
shows  the  "Fighting  Elder,"  as  he  used  to  be 
called.  That  was  all  gone  from  his  face  when 
I  used  to  know  him.  I  saw  it  just  once.  He 
used  to  call  some  of  us  into  council  sometimes. 
How  well  I  remember  it!  He  stopped  on  the 
brick  walk  in  front  of  the  house  and  pounded 


Bishop  McTyeire.  35 

with  his  big  stick,  not  ringing  the  doorbell.  -I 
went  out  the  first  time  to  see  what  it  was,  and 
found  the  Bishop.  After  that  I  knew  the  Bish- 
op's summons  to  council.  On  the  occasion  of 
this  summons  he  felt  that  advantage  had  been 
taken  of  him  and  that  the  tactics  employed  were 
not  fair.  As  he  stated  the  case  he  leaned  back 
on  the  bench  and  looked  up  at  the  sky,  and  I 
was  amazed  to  see  a  sudden  transformation  in 
his  visage.  The  "Fighting  Elder"  was  unmistak- 
ably there.  The  face  of  the  portrait  of  the  Elder 
of  forty  had  suddenly  reappeared  in  the  Bishop 
of  sixty.  It  was  but  for  a  moment;  then  the 
calm,  patient,  prudent,  wise  look  returned. 

Let  me  say  here  a  word  with  reference  to  his 
relations  with  the  faculty.  I  do  not  know  how 
it  was  during  the  first  seven  years,  for  I  was  not 
here  then ;  but  I  do  know  all  about  it  during  the 
remaining  seven  years  of  his  life.  The  faculty 
had  cause  not  simply  to  respect  and  admire,  but 
to  love  him,  and  with  reason.  Natural  leader 
that  he  was,  he  knew  the  special  aptitudes  of 
those  about  him,  and  gave  any  piece  of  honest 
work  hearty  but  judicious  commendation.  Per- 
haps no  professor  felt  so  sure  that  any  of  his 
colleagues  would  read  what  he  wrote  as  that  the 
Bishop  would  read  it.  He  used  often  to  come, 
especially  in  later  years,  to  the  Tuesday  after- 


36  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

noon  faculty  meeting;  never,  however,  to  dic- 
tate a  policy,  but  simply  to  take  counsel.  It  had 
become  his  custom  to  get  the  faculty's  advice 
on  all  matters  to  be  presented  to  the  Board,  and 
his  appearance  at  faculty  meetings  was  invaria- 
bly hailed  with  pleasure.  His  common  formula 
of  introduction  of  a  matter  of  business  was,  I 
remember,  "In  multitude  of  counselors  there  is 
safety." 

He  was  not  a  hard  man,  but  a  gentle  man. 
"His  heart  was  soft  as  a  summer  sea,"  said 
Bishop  Haygood  after  his  death.  It  was  the 
truest  thing  ever  said  about  him.  On  one  of 
the  last  days  he  had  his  bed  rolled  to  the  win- 
dow and  gazed  out  longingly  on  the  campus,  the 
work  of  his  hands  and  brain.  He  would  like  to 
stay,  he  sighed;  "but  God's  will  be  done."  He 
had  strong  local  attachments,  and  liked  to  have 
people  and  animals  buried  amid  the  scenes  where 
they  had  worked  and  enjoyed  life.  "Kitty 
Clover,"  his  beautiful  mare,  was  buried  in  the 
corner  of  her  own  stable  lot.  One  night  from 
his  sick  bed  he  heard  his  dog  "Spider"  howl, 
and  said  to  the  bedside  watcher :  "When  'Spider' 
dies,  open  'Kitty  Clover's'  grave  and  bury  her 
there,  the  faithful  dog  by  the  faithful  horse." 
He  had  Dr.  Summers,  the  first  Dean,  buried  on 
the  grounds  in  the  plot  set  apart  for  Bishops 


Bishop  McTyeire.  37 

McKendree  and  Soule,  and  there  a  place  was 
provided  for  the  old  Chancellor  when  he  should 
follow.  And  there  now,  as  was  meet  and  right, 
beside  his  wife — "a  silent  but  golden  link  in  the 
chain  of  Providence  that  led  to  Vanderbilt  Uni- 
versity"— he  is  buried.  As  Chancellor  Kirkland 
beautifully  said  in  his  inaugural:  "Under  the. 
magnolias  planted  with  his  own  hand  he  sleepeth 
well." 


III. 
WILLIAM  MALONE  BASKERVILL. 

Remembering  all  the  golden  hours 
Now  silent,  and  so  many  dead, 
And  him  the  last. 

THE  death  of  Professor  Baskervill,  September 
6,  1899,  cut  short  a  career  that  had  already  ac- 
complished much  and  promised  more.  His 
technical  scholarship  was  recognized  by  his 
colleagues  in  English  throughout  the  United 
States;  his  teaching  quality  attested  by  students 
who  had  been  resorting  to  him  in  increasing 
numbers  for  more  than  twenty  years ;  his  power 
to  please  as  well  as  instruct  the  general  public 
evidenced  by  numerous  calls  to  lecture  at  Chau- 
tauqua,  in  Colorado,  at  Monteagle,  and  else- 
where; and  he  \vas  just  finding  his  widest  audi- 
ence through  his  literary  sketches  and  studies, 
and  awrakening  in  good  judges  the  conviction 
that  he  was  to  be  the  historian  of  the  intellectual 
movement  called  Southern  Literature. 

William  Malone  Baskervill,  son  of  Rev.  John 
Baskervill  and  his  wife,  Elizabeth  Malone,  was 
born  in  Fayette  county,  Tennessee,  April  i,  1850. 

(38) 


WILLIAM    MALONE    BASKERVILL. 


William  Malone  Baskervill.  39 

His  mother  died  when  he  was  four  years  old,  so 
that  his  training  devolved  mainly  upon  his  fa- 
ther. The  latter,  a  member'  of  an  old  Virginia 
family,  had  removed  in  early  life  from  Mecklen- 
burg, Virginia,  to  Tennessee,  and  was  first  a 
physician,  afterwards  a  Methodist  preacher  and 
planter.  The  son  attended  school  almost  uninter- 
ruptedly till  he  was  fifteen,  getting,  as  he  him- 
self afterwards  said,  "a  smattering  of  Latin  and 
Greek  and  of  the  usual  English  studies."  He 
was  then  sent  to  Indiana  Asbury  University 
(now  De  Pauw),  and  this  episode  also  he  char- 
acterized in  terms  of  like  directness:  "But  I  did 
nothing,  and  at  sixteen  I  was  again  at  home." 
From  this  time  he  was  more  fortunate.  "For 
the  next  two  years  and  a  half,"  he  wrote  in  his 
Vita,  "I  went  to  school  to  Mr.  Quarles,  a  grad- 
uate of  the  University  of  Virginia,  and  from 
him  I  learned  more  than  I  had  learned  all  the 
time  before." 

Before  he  reached  manhood  he  met  with  an 
accident  the  consequences  of  which  much  influ- 
enced his  future  career.  Being  in  his  boyhood, 
as  indeed  all  through  life,  fond  of  hunting,  on 
one  occasion,  through  the  accidental  discharge  of 
his  gun,  he  was  badly  wounded  in  his  left  arm. 
During  the  three  months'  confinement  that  fol- 
lowed, the  boy  was  wisely  provided  by  his  father 


4O  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

with  the  histories  of  Macaulay,  Hume,  Gibbon, 
and  Michelet,  and  the  novels  of  Scott,  Dickens, 
and  Thackeray.  He  had  been  a  reader  before, 
but  through  this  constant  poring  over  the  works 
of  great  masters  he  acquired  the  taste  and  en- 
thusiasm for  the  best  literature  which  character- 
ized him  through  life.  One  of  the  first  things 
I  especially  remarked  about  him,  when  I  came  to 
know  him  in  Leipzig  in  1874,  was  the  way  he 
would  sometimes  break  oft",  particularly  when 
he  was  not  well,  from  our  studies  in  Greek  and 
Latin  to  take  a  rest  with  Thackeray  or  some 
other  English  classic.  "It  is  the  reading  men  in 
college,"  as  Mr.  Mabie  says,  "who  do  the  great 
things  in  the  world." 

The  most  important  epoch  in  his  mental  de- 
velopment was  when  he  went  at  twenty-two  to 
Randolph-Macon  College.  Dr.  James  A.  Dun- 
can was  then  President;  Thomas  R.  Price,  Pro- 
fessor of  English  and  Greek ;  James  A.  Harri- 
son, Professor  of  Latin  and  German ;  and  these 
three  men,  especially  the  two  latter,  influenced 
his  subsequent  life  more  than  all  others.  "There 
I  was  taught,"  he  said,  "in  my  favorite  studies 
by  men  who  had  studied  in  Germany,  and  by 
their  advice  I  was  led  to  go  to  Leipzig  in  the 
summer  of  1874."  When  I  came  to  know  him 
that  fall  the  names  of  Price  and  Harrison  were 


William  M alone  Baskervill.  41 

constantly  on  his  lips.  Their  ideals,  their  meth- 
ods, their  characters  as  scholars,  were  deter- 
mining factors  with  him.  Dr.  Price,  the  accu- 
rate scholar  and  inspiring  teacher  of  English, 
became  his  model,  and  the  close  friendship  be- 
gun at  Randolph-Macon  continued  when  the 
former  went  later  to  the  University  of  Virginia, 
and  afterwards  to  Columbia,  indeed  as  long  as 
Baskervill  lived;  and  his  sense  of  obligation 
was  most  delicately  expressed  when,  on  meeting 
Dr.  Price  for  the  last  time,  in  New  York  in  1897, 
he  introduced  a  former  pupil,  now  a  rising  pro- 
fessor of  English,  as  Dr.  Price's  "literary  grand- 
son." The  cordiality  of  the  relation  that  existed 
between  Dr.  Price  and  his  old  pupils  may  be 
inferred  from  a  remark  which  I  have  heard 
Baskervill  quote  from  the  former,  that  a  trustee 
had  told  him  he  owed  his  election  to  the  chair  of 
English  at  Columbia  mainly  to  the  enthusiastic 
letters  written  by  his  former  students.  He  al- 
ways regarded  Dr.  Price  as  the  pioneer  and 
founder  of  the  new  epoch  of  English  studies  in 
the  South ;  and  Price's  teaching  of  English  at 
Randolph-Macon  was  not  only  his  chief  early 
inspiration,  but  the  model  and  basis  on  which 
later  he  gradually  built  up  his  own  department 
of  English  at  Vanderbilt. 

With  Professor  Harrison,  who  afterwards  in 


42  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

the  English  Chair  at  Washington  and  Lee  so  en- 
hanced the  reputation  already  acquired  at  Ran- 
dolph-Macon  that  his  call  to  his  alma  mater,  the 
University  of  Virginia,  became  inevitable,  Bas- 
kervill  was  always  in  close  association,  not  only 
consulting  him  about  all  his  literary  undertak- 
ings, but  collaborating  with  him  on  several 
works.  For  Professor  Harrison's  "Library  of 
Anglo-Saxon  Poetry"  he  edited  the  "Andreas," 
his  first  piece  of  scholarly  work  after  his  doctor- 
dissertation.  The  two  edited  together  a  "Stu- 
dents' Dictionary  of  Anglo-Saxon,"  and  shortly 
before  Baskervill's  death  their  last  joint  work 
appeared,  an  "Anglo-Saxon  Reader"  for  begin- 
ners. One  other  teacher  of  his  should  not  be 
overlooked:  Professor  Wuelker,  of  Leipzig  L^ni- 
versity,  under  whose  supervision  he  wrote  his 
doctor-dissertation,  to  whom  in  after  years  he 
sent  some  of  his  favorite  pupils,  and  with  whom 
he  continued  in  friendly  relations  to  the  end  of 
his  life. 

A  characteristic  of  Baskervill's  student  life 
should  here  be  mentioned.  When  he  went  to 
Randolph-Macon  he  found  everything  elective 
and  the  way  open  to  him  to  pursue  his  favorite 
studies  as  he  pleased.  To  do  this,  it  is  true,  he 
would  have  to  renounce  the  hope  of  an  academic 
degree ;  and  so  he  either  waived  this  completely, 


William  Malonc  Baskervill.  43 

or  at  least  put  it  off,  to  be  determined  later,  when 
he  should  have  first  had  opportunity  to  work  to 
some  results  in  his  own  lines.  He  was  maturer 
in  years  than  most  of  his  fellow-students,  prob- 
ably somewhat  backward  in  mathematics,  and 
without  any  text-book  acquaintance  with  the  sci- 
ences. He  was  for  his  age  well  read  in  English 
literature  and  history,  and  had  a  fair  knowledge 
and  great  love  of  Latin  and  Greek.  He  devoted 
himself,  therefore,  during  his  two  years  at  Ran- 
dolph-Macon  almost  entirely  to  work  in  lan- 
guages— English,  Greek,  Latin,  German,  and 
French.  I  think  Dr.  Duncan's  lectures  on  men- 
tal and  moral  philosophy  were  his  only  departure 
from  literary  lines.  Such  a  course,  if  not  best  in 
general,  was  perhaps  not  ill  for  him.  He  had 
very  strong  predilections,  studied  enthusiastically 
what  he  liked,  but  was  not  characterized  strong- 
ly by  the  spirit  to  "work  doggedly"  at  what  he 
did  not  like.  The  atmosphere  that  prevailed  just 
then  at  Randolph-Macon  was  a  very  wholesome 
one:  the  spirit  of  the  faculty  was  scholarly; 
among  the  students  the  sense  of  honor,  the  habit 
of  hard  work,  the  respect  for  high  scholastic 
rank,  were  stimulating  in  the  highest  degree.  So 
Baskervill  worked  effectively,  in  most  studies  en- 
thusiastically, and  took  high  rank  in  his  special 
subjects;  but  he  never  applied  for  a  Bachelor's 


44  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

degree,  and  in  1874  proceeded,  on  the  advice  of 
Price  and  Harrison,  to  Leipzig  University. 

The  freedom  of  choice  of  studies  in  which  he 
had  indulged  at  Randolph-Macon  characterizes 
of  course  all  German  university  work — though 
presupposing,  and  in  case  of  German  students 
requiring,  a  basal  course  much  more  rigid  than 
any  American  college  exacts — so  that  Baskervill 
found  it  easy  to  follow  there  his  own  bent.  If 
he  showed  any  willfulness  at  Leipzig,  it  was  in 
this:  that  he  did  not  take  a  wide  range  of  lec- 
tures in  his  own  subjects — I  fear  academic  lec- 
tures often  bored  him — and  he  was  not  an  enthu- 
siastic worker  in  Seminar  or  Gesellschaft.  The 
lectures  he  took  he  attended,  and  he  got  some- 
thing from  personal  contact  with  his  instructors, 
especially  with  Wuelker;  but  in  the  main  he 
worked,  under  direction,  at  his  room  and  in  the 
library.  I  doubt  if  this  was  the  best  way  to  get 
the  most  possible  out  of  a  German  university 
course ;  but  he  was  diligent,  and  was  certainty 
influenced  for  good  in  his  whole  subsequent  ca- 
reer. His  Leipzig  Ph.D.  (1880)  was  a  valuable 
stamp  set  upon  his  work  up  to  that  point, 
pledged  him  to  scholarly  effort  for  the  future, 
and  proved  an  open  sesame  to  a  field  of  activity 
that  might  otherwise  have  been  closed  to  him. 

Baskervill    remained    in    Germany    from    the 


William  Malone  BaskervilL  45 

summer  of  1874  till  the  autumn  of  1876.  My 
work  at  Wofford  in  Latin  and  German  was  be- 
coming too  heavy,  and  I  persuaded  the  author- 
ities to  call  Baskervill  in  December,  1876,  the  ar- 
rangement being  that  he  should  take  the  Latin 
while  I  gave  myself  more  especially  to  Greek. 
At  Wofford  Baskervill  taught  till  June,  1878. 
In  the  summer  of  1877  ne  was  married  to  Miss 
Florence  Adams,  of  Amherst  county,  Virginia, 
his  beloved  college  president,  Dr.  James  A.  Dun- 
can, performing  the  ceremony.  In  the  summer 
of  1878  he  went  again  with  his  young  wife  to 
Germany,  to  work  for  his  degree.  Old  rela- 
tions were  resumed  at  Leipzig,  English  and 
cognate  studies  were  being  pursued  with  zeal 
and  energy,  and  a  subject  for  a  thesis,  which 
had  been  assigned  him  by  Professor  Wuelker, 
was  yielding  good  results,  when  the  sudden 
death  of  his  wife,  following  the  birth  of  a  little 
boy,  threw  all  into  confusion.  He  tried  to  work 
a  few  months  longer,  but,  finding  it  impossible, 
returned  to  America  about  February,  1879. 
When  I  withdrew  from  Wofford,  in  June,  1879. 
to  resume  my  studies  in  Leipzig  University,  it 
was  natural,  of  course,  that  Baskervill  should 
take  my  place.  I  had  had  for  the  previous 
year  the  chief  work  in  Greek  and  Latin,  with 
James  H.  Kirkland,  now  Chancellor  of  Vander- 


46  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

bilt  University,  as  assistant,  and  this  work  Bas- 
kervill  carried  on  as  long  as  he  remained  at 
Wofford. 

The  Wofford  period  was  formative  -for  Bas- 
kervill  in  man}-  respects,  though  it  offered  little 
opportunity  in  the  branch  that  was  to  be  his 
specialty,  since  his  time  was  mainly  given  to 
teaching  Latin  and  Greek.  It  brought  him  into 
intimate  contact  with  Dr.  Carlisle,  whom  Pro- 
fessor Henneman  has  aptly  characterized  as  "a 
man  fashioned  in  the  same  teacher's  mold  as  Dr. 
Arnold  of  Rugby,  and  of  whom  every  student 
ever  with  him  thinks  reverently  as  of  one  of 
the  truly  and  simply  great  in  his  state  and  age." 
Dr.  Whitefoord  Smith  had  not  then  given  up 
his  chair  of  English,  Professor  Wallace  Duncan, 
later  Bishop,  was'  teaching  Mental  and  Moral 
Philosophy,  and  Du  Pre.  Gamewell,  and  the 
writer  were  younger  associates.  A  fruitful  epi- 
sode of  this  period  was  his  summer's  run  over  to 
Leipzig  to  stand  his  examination  for  Ph.D.  It 
was  exhilarating  to  him  and  to  me,  for  we  were 
daily  together  for  a  few  weeks  in  Leipzig,  and 
spent  together  his  last  week  on  German  soil  hi 
tramping  over  the  Harz  Mountains,  with  Trese- 
burg  as  center  of  operations. 

The  next  spring  came  the  opportunity  of  his 
life,  his  call  to  the  chair  of  English  in  Vanderbilt 


William  Malone  Baskervill.  47 

University.1  He  made  there  a  fortunate  and 
congenial  marriage,  and  found  at  once  a  wider 
field  where  he  could  show  his  aptness  to  teach 
and  his  talent  for  building  up  a  department.  He 
exerted  himself  with  success  not  only  to  teach 
well,  but  also  to  please.  His  letters  of  that  pe- 
riod show  that  he  believed  the  Vanderbilt  to  be 
the  best  place  in  the  country  for  a  young  scholar 
to  make  a  reputation  in.  The  recognition  he 
met  with  from  the  faculty,  the  appreciation  of 
him  shown  by  the  students,  the  kindly  consid- 
eration with  which  he  was  generally  received 
in  Nashville,  were  good  for  him.  Mind  and 
soul  expanded  in  such  influences.  It  was,  to  use 
Sidney  Lanier's  words,  "a  little  of  the  wine  of 
success  and  praise  without  which  no  man  ever 
does  the  very  best  he  might." 

The  teaching  of  English  in  the  South  is  great- 
ly indebted  to  Baskervill.  Professor  Price  doubt- 
less inaugurated  the  new  era  in  English  study 
when  Baskervill  was  his  pupil  at  Randolph- 
Macon,  but  the  next  most  important  stage  in 
the  development  was  probably  Baskervill's  work 
at  Vanderbilt.  His  greatest  results  were  his 

*I  have  freely  incorporated,  with  slight  changes,  in 
the  remaining  pages  extracts  from  a  sketch  of  Basker- 
vill which  I  printed  in  the  Christian  Advocate,  October 
25,  1900. 


48  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

best  pupils.  To  mention  only  English  scholars 
in  prominent  positions,  there  occur  to  me  at  this 
moment  the  names  of  Professors  Henneman, 
Snyder,  Mims,  Hulme,  Webb,  Weber,  Burke, 
Brown,  Sewell,  Reed,  Drake,  and  Bourland,  and 
(adding-  three  who  are  well  known  in  other 
lines  of  duty)  Deering,  Ferrell.  and  Branham. 
To  these  ^and  to  many  others  Mims's  words  ap- 
ply: "His  life  is  still  being  lived  in  us — leading 
us  on  to  nobler  and  higher  ideals."  It  may  well 
be  doubted  whether  any  other  man  in  the  South 
will  ever  again  before  his  fiftieth  year  be  able 
to  see  such  fruits  of  his  work,  if  for  no  other 
reason,  because  Baskervill  was  a  pioneer  in  the 
new  methods  of  teaching  English.  The  impulse 
his  best  pupils  received  from  him  in  literary 
taste  and  scholarly  aspiration  is  doubtless  the 
best  proof  that  he  himself  possessed  scholarship 
and  literary  taste.  He  made  scholars  not  merely 
by  what  and  how  he  taught  them,  but  by  his 
personal  interest  and  sympathy  in  them  and 
their  work.  In  June,  1899,  though  the  doctor 
had  ordered  him  to  go  at  once  to  East  Brook 
Springs,  he  could  not  be  induced  to  be  absent 
from  the  last  faculty  meeting,  because  he  had 
promised  to  support  some  young  men  for  fel- 
lowships, and  they  were  depending  on  him. 
Baskervill's  heart  was  in  his  teaching  and  his 


William  Malone  Baskervill.  49 

literary  work  still  more  than  in  technical  and 
philological  studies.  Besides  his  doctor-disser- 
tation, the  Anglo-Saxon  text  of  Alexander's 
Epistle  to  Aristotle,  and  the  books  published  in 
collaboration  with  Professor  Harrison,  he  pub- 
lished, with  a  former  pupil,  Mr.  J.  W.  Sewell,  an 
English  grammar  for  the  use  of  high  school, 
academy,  and  college  classes,  also  leaving  in 
manuscript  an  elementary  English  grammar ; 
and  he  did  much  etymological  work  on  the  Cen- 
tury Dictionary,  and  planned  other  things  of 
similar  nature ;  but  his  heart  was  really  in  other 
lines.  In  a  letter  of  1898,  referring  to  his  con- 
templated revision  of  his  "Andreas,"  he  wrote, 
in  the  words  of  Carlyle,  "And  now  my  poor 
wife  will  have  to  pass  through  the  valley  and 
the  shadow  of  Andreas,"  meaning  the  allusion 
to  be  jocose,  it  is  true ;  but  if  it  had  been  purely 
literary  work,  he  would  not  even  have  thought 
of  "the  valley  and  the  shadow"  in  connection 
with  it.  Indeed,  the  greatest  thing  about  Bas- 
kervill, I  always  thought,  was  his  fine  literary 
taste,  especially  in  great  prose.  His  reading  was 
regularly  on  high  lines,  literature  that  was  full 
of  high  seriousness.  The  fact  that  almost  be- 
fore he  was  out  of  his  teens  he  preferred  Thack- 
eray to  Dickens,  and  that  no  other  novelist 
could  ever  displace  Thackeray  in  his  estimation, 
4 


50  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

is  significant  of  much.  In  the  last  few  years  I 
had  much  desire  and  curiosity  to  have  a  full, 
free  talk  with  him  about  poetry,  to  learn  how  he 
really  felt  it.  But  having  reread  recently  his 
papers  on  "Southern  Writers,"  I  have  noted 
again,  as  before,  that  the  subtlest  study,  as  it  is 
the  longest,  is  of  the  greatest  of  our  Southern 
poets  except  Poe — namely,  Sidney  Lanier;  and 
I  understand  the  better  his  appreciation  of 
Lanier  since  I  have  recently  become  a  devoted 
adherent  of  that  poet.  I  have  realized,  too,  that 
it  was  the  poetic  side  of  Maurice  Thompson 
which  he  most  highly  estimated  and  most  dis- 
cerningly and  lovingly  discussed.  It  seems  to 
have  been,  also,  in  large  part  the  poetic  gift  of 
Invin  Russell  which  caused  him  to  give  that 
pioneer  a  prominent  place  in  his  series  of  South- 
ern writers.  But  more  to  the  point  is  a  para- 
graph of  a  letter  from  Mrs.  Baskervill,  dated 
October  30,  1900: 

He  had  a  growing  admiration  for  Tennyson  as  a 
teacher  and  upholder  of  great  truths.  He  set  a  high 
value  on  the  originality  and  truth,  the  purity  and  no- 
bility of  Wordsworth.  Reading  aloud  from  one  of 
the  "L}-rical  Ballad?."  it  might  be.  he  would  say:  "If 
I  know  anything  about  it.  this  is  poetry."  He  felt 
the  beauty  and  the  force  of  it.  Yet,  realizing  there 
could  be  no  link  of  sympathy  between  two  such  poets 
as  Wordsworth  and  Burns,  how  he  enjoyed,  I  remem- 


William  M alone  Baskervill,  51 

her,  reading  Hazlitt's  trenchant  criticism  on  Words- 
worth, in  his  essay  on  Burns,  or  his  attack  on  the 
"intimations"  of  the  famous  ode,  which  I  believe  Mat- 
thew Arnold  also  takes  up.  However  sensible  to  the 
charm,  I  think  he  felt  after  all  that  to  study  too  close- 
ly the  poetry  of  Shelley,  and  even  Keats,  was  like  tak- 
ing hold  of  a  butterfly.  I  recall  how  his  eye  kindled, 
his  countenance  lighted  up,  and  his  whole  frame  seemed 
agitated,  as  he  came  upon  some  fine  passage  from  Car- 
lyle  or  Ruskin  or  Lowell — one  of  those  "electric  light 
flashes  of  truth,"  as  he  termed  it.  No  matter  how  I 
happened  to  be  engaged,  I  must  stop  and  share  his 
enthusiasm.  He  intended  making  a  special  study  of 
Browning  the  coming  winter,  had  gathered  books  and 
material  with  such  a  purpose  in  view.  His  best  teach- 
ing, he  used  to  tell  me,  was  done  in  Shakespeare.  Yet 
after  all  it  was  in  Thackeray  that  he  still  found  his 
chief  delight — "that  master  of  .characterization,  the  sub- 
tlest analyst  of  his  time."  Like  Mr.  Page,  he  never 
ceased  to  wonder  at  his  knowledge  of  human  nature. 
Only  the  winter  before  his  death  he  took  up  Thack- 
eray again,  with  the  aid  of  Mrs.  Ritchie's  introduction 
to  the  volumes,  intending  to  write  an  article  for  the 
Review. 

"How  well  I  remember,''  adds  Mrs.  Basker- 
vill, "the  advent  of  the  new  school  of  Southern 
writers.  With  what  zest  he  read  and  reread, 
feeling  a  kind  of  personal  pride  in  each  new  dis- 
covery !  His  heart  and  soul  were  in  that  work." 
He  had  for  several  years  been  telling  me  and 
writing  me  about  the  wonderful  new  outcropping 


52  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

of  Southern  \vriters,  especially  about  Cable  and 
Harris,  whose  names  I  saw  constantly,  of  course, 
in  the  magazines  and  papers,  but  whom  I  was 
then  "too  busy"  to  read.  I  remember  very  dis- 
tinctly the  day  I  was  inducted  into  the  new  cult. 
I  was  ill  and  confined  to  my  room,  though  able 
to  sit  up.  Baskervill  came  to  see  me,  and 
brought  Cable's  "Old  Creole  Days."  I  think  I 
read  the  whole  volume  without  rising  from  my 
chair,  with  increasing  appreciation  and  delight 
as  I  went  from  story  to  story ;  and  when  I  fin- 
ished ''Madame  Delphine"  a  glow  passed  over 
me  from  head  to  foot  and  back  from  foot  to 
head,  and  I  said  to  myself,  with  profound  feel- 
ing: "It  has  come  at  last!''  I  meant  the  day  of 
the  South's  finding  her  expression  in  literature. 
Such  a  moment  of  overwhelming  conviction  and 
satisfaction  can  come  only  once.  I  know.  I  real- 
ized then  that  the  South  had  the  material  in  her 
old  past,  and  that  we  had  the  writers  with  the 
art  to  portray  it. 

As  I  reread  now  Baskervill's  "Biographical 
and  Critical  Studies  of  Southern  Writers,"  I 
find  myself  marking  many  passages,  some  of 
them  sentiments  which  I  heard  him  express 
many  times  years  ago,  others  bits  of  critical  ap- 
preciation which  impress  me  not  only  as  having 
come  from  his  inmost  conviction,  but  as  reach- 


William  Malone  Baskervill.  53 

ing  the  heart  of  the  matter.  Of  this  latter 
character  is  the  remark  about  Mr.  Cable's 
"Dr.  Sevier": 

And  the  hand  that  drew  Ristofalo,  with  his  quiet 
manner,  happy  disregard  of  fortune's  caprices  and1  real 
force  of  character,  Narcisse — "dear,  delicious,  abomi- 
nable Narcisse,  more  effective  as  a  bit  of  coloring  than 
all  the  Grandissimes  put  together" — and  crowned  him 
with  the  death  of  a  hero ;  and  gentle  Mary,  bright, 
cheerful,  brave,  an  ideal  lover  of  her  husband  as  he 
was  of  her,  is  certainly  that  of  a  master,  as  the  imagi- 
nation that  conceived  them  was  that  of  a  poet.  There 
are  innumerable  touches  in  the  story  equal  to  anything 
that  the  author  has  ever  done — that  is,  as  beautiful  as 
anything  in  contemporary  fiction. 

As  good  as  that  is  a  passage  on  "Bonaven- 
ture"  (p.  351),  which,  coming  .immediately  be- 
fore his  statement  in  a  single  paragraph  of  the 
defects  of  "John  March,  Southerner,"  makes  all 
the  weightier  the  severe  condemnation  there  pro- 
nounced on  that  unlucky  book — "one  of  the  dis- 
malest  failures  ever  made  by  a  man  of  genius." 
The  verdict  against  "John  March,  Southerner," 
concludes  with  the  assurance,  based  on  "the 
'Taxidermist'  and  one  or  two  other  gems  of  re- 
cent years,"  that  "the  divine  fire  still  burns,"  and 
with  the  wish,  "Would  that  it  could  be  religious- 
ly consecrated  to  pure  art !"  For,  says  he  in  his 
study,  as  I  have  heard  him  remark  often,  "The 


54  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

man  with  a  mission  throttles  the  artist,"  and  "An 
artist  out  of  his  domain  is  not  infrequently  the 
least  clear-sighted  of  mortals."  Indeed,  the  sum 
and  substance  of  all  of  Baskervill's  criticism  of 
Mr.  Cable  is  contained  in  this  one  line:  "The 
poet,  if  he  is  to  be  our  only  truth-teller,  must 
let  politics  alone."  Baskervill  was  proud  of  Mr. 
Cable's  genius  and  fond  of  him  personally,  en- 
tertained him  in  his  home  at  Nashville  for  sev- 
eral days,  and  used  to  correspond  with  him;  and 
the  real  explanation  of  all  the  criticism  in  his 
sketch  of  Mr.  Cable  is  not  that  Baskervill  as  a 
Southerner  so  much  resented  criticism  of  the 
Creoles  and  of  other  Southern  people,  but  that 
Mr.  Cable  was  devoting  to  philanthropic  notions, 
especially  to  the  negro  question,  genius  that  be- 
longed to  literature.  "The  domination  of  one 
idea  has  vitiated,"  he  said  regretfully,  "the  most 
exquisite  literary  and  artistic  gifts  that  any 
American  writer  of  fiction,  with  possibly  one 
exception,  has  been  endowed  with  since  Haw- 
thorne." 

I  think  still  that  the  best  of  the  "Studies"  be- 
cause the  most  sympathetic,  the  most  pleasing 
because  it  came  without  reserve  right  from  the 
heart  as  well  as  the  brain,  is  that  on  Joel  Chan- 
dler Harris.  I  know  his  judgment  is  sincere  be- 
cause I  have  heard  it  from  his  lips  many  times. 


William  Malone  BaskervilL  55 

He  thought  that  Mr.  Harris,  of  all  the  Southern 
writers,  had  most  effectively  used  his  talents, 
most  completely  fulfilled  his  mission.  "The  most 
sympathetic,  the  most  original,  the  truest  delin- 
eator of  this  larger  life — its  manners,  customs, 
amusements,  dialect,  folklore,  humor,  pathos, 
and  character  —  is  Joel  Chandler  Harris." 
"Humor  and  sympathy  are  his  chief  qualities," 
he  said,  "and  in  everything  he  is  simple  and 
natural."  Uncle  Remus  he  placed  above  all 
that  Southern  authors  have  done — "the  most 
valuable  and,  in  this  writer's  opinion,  the  most 
permanent  contribution  to  American  literature 
in  the  last  quarter  of  this  century" — "one  of 
the  few  creations  of  American  writers  worthy  of 
a  place  in  the  gallery  of  the  immortals." 
Baskervill  still  hoped  from  Mr.  Harris 

a  work  into  which  he  will  put  the  wealth  of  his  mind  and 
heart,  and  expand  and  compress  into  one  novel  the  com- 
pletest  expression  of  his  whole  being.  But  if  he  should 
never  give  us  a  masterpiece  of  fiction  like  his  beloved 
"Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  "Ivanhoe,"  "Vanity  Fair,"  or 
"The  Scarlet  Letter,"  we  shall  still  be  forever  grateful 
for  the  fresh  and  beautiful  stories,  the  delightful  humor, 
the  genial,  manly  philosophy,  and  the  wise  and  witty  say- 
ings in  which  his  writings  abound.  His  characters  have 
become  world  possessions;  his  words  are  in  all  our 
mouths.  By  virtue  of  these  gifts  he  will  be  enrolled  in 
that  small  but  distinguished  company  of  humorists,  the 
immortals  of  the  heart  and  home,  whose  genius,  wis- 


56  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

dom,  and  charity  keep  fresh  and  sweet  the  springs  of 
life,  and  Uncle  Remus  will  live  always. 

His  personal  attitude  toward  his  work  on  the 
Southern  authors  seems  to  me  worthy  of  all 
praise.  He  used  to  write  me  in  those  days, 
''Keep  on  criticising  my  work:  that  is  what  I 
need ;  others  will  praise  me."  I  did  criticise  him 
more  often  and  more  freely  than  I  have  ever 
criticised  any  one  else,  as  I  had  a  right  to  do, 
since  we  were  friends ;  and  I  do  not  remember 
that  my  criticism  ever  vexed  him.  It  is  pathetic 
to  me  now  to  read  again  how  he  sought  to 
justify  himself  when  I  criticised  his  over- favor- 
able or  insufficiently  appreciative  estimate  of  one 
or  other  of  the  Southern  authors,  and  how  he 
tried  to  show  that  we  were  probably,  after  all, 
not  far  apart  in  our  judgments — if  only  he  could 
have  expressed  himself  in  his  sketch  as  frankly 
and  as  freely  as  we  did  in  our  letters.  As  I  re- 
read these  "Studies"  in  the  light  of  his  letters  of 
the  period,  I  am  almost  surprised  to  note  how 
they  grow  upon  me.  His  hand  was  steadily 
learning  cunning;  he  expressed  himself,  his  own 
ideas  more,  quoted  less  from  others  than  for- 
merly ;  was  gaining  in  felicity  of  expression,  an- 
alyzed more  subtly  and  clearly.  If  he  had  gone 
on,  he  would  clearly  have  been  thought  worthy 
to  become  the  historian  of  Southern  literature, 


William  Malone  Baskervill.  57 

and  might  well  have  aspired  to  an  even  wider 
field.  "He  improved,"  said  Dr.  Tigert,  "more 
rapidly  during  the  last  ten  years  than  any  other 
man  I  ever  knew  at  his  age.  He  studied  hard, 
wrote  and  rewrote,  so  that  I  am  confident  his 
best  work  has  been  left  undone." 

The  insight  and  skill  displayed  in  the  "Stud- 
ies" suggested  to  Mr.  Hamilton  W.  Mabie  also 
the  idea  of  Baskervill  becoming  the  historian  of 
Southern  literature.  In  a  letter  of  March  30, 
1897,  he  wrote: 

I  have  been  very  much  interested  in  your  series  of 
"Southern  Writers,"  and  it  has  seemed  to  me  that  you 
were  getting  together  a  large  amount  of  valuable  lit- 
erary material.  Have  you  had  any  thought  of  making 
a  book  of  the  chapters  when  you  have  finished  them? 
This  is  not  an  idle  question.  If  you  have  any  such 
thought,  I  should  venture  to  make  a  suggestion  to 
you.  I  should  think  with  some  revision  and  with  an 
introductory  and  closing  chapter  you  might  make  a  his- 
tory of  the  entire  literary  movement  in  the  South 
which  would  be  of  great  interest  and  usefulness.  Your 
treatment  of  Lanier  was  capital. 

The  Southern  writers  themselves  placed  a 
high  estimate  on  his  critical  work.  "I  appre- 
ciate your  gifts  as  a  critic,"  wrote.  Mr.  Harris ; 
"rather  I  would  say  your  gifts  as  a  literary 
essayist,  which  include  conscience  as  well  as  the 


58  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

critical  faculty."     Mr.  James  Lane  Allen  wrote 
him  concerning  the  "Studies" : 

I  shall  give  them  a  slow,  critical,  absorptive  read- 
ing. They  interest  me  greatly,  and  I  think  represent 
an  initial  movement  toward  the  recognition,  toward  the 
appreciation  of  Southern  writers,  that  would  mean  so 
much  if  deeply  fostered.  We  scribblers  of  little  things, 
but  with  fine  intentions,  owe  you  so  much.  I  believe 
you  have  stood  almost  alone  in  your  early  and  hardy 
advocacy  of  our  cause  and — beyond  our  deserts — of  our 
place  also.  Here's  a  New  Year's  blessing  on  you  for 
it  from  one  of  the  lesser  of  them ! 

The  work  which  Baskervill  so  well  began  is 
going  on.  The  memorial  volume,  issued  in  1903, 
is  the  best  tribute  to  his  influence  and  his  teach- 
ing in  the  sphere  of  literary  studies ;  and  I  have 
often  thought  how  he  would  be  touched  could 
he  know  that  other  Southern  writers  whom  he 
intended  to  commemorate  were  receiving  sym- 
pathetic and  illuminating  treatment  from  his  old 
pupils. 


CHARLES    KEN'DALL    ADAMS. 


IV. 

PRESIDENT  CHARLES  KENDALL 
ADAMS. 

FOR  the  presidency  of  the  University  of  Wis- 
consin, which  was  doubtless  the  most  impor- 
tant work  of  his  life,  Dr.  Charles  Kendall  Ad- 
ams was  peculiarly  fitted  by  circumstances  as 
well  as  training.  Born  in  Vermont,  January  24, 
1835,  °f  a  family  that  was  old,  but,  like  the  typ- 
ical New  England  farm,  poor,  he  had  in  his  boy- 
hood meager  opportunities  for  study :  in  summer 
working  on  the  farm,  in  winter  first  attending 
and  later  teaching  district  schools.  But  he  was 
always  eager  to  learn,  and  his  brother  used  to  tell 
how  with  a  book  on  his  plow  he  sometimes  let 
his  beast  make  a  furrow  at  its  will  till  aroused 
from  his  preoccupation.  Perhaps  it  was  sig- 
nificant that  this  youth,  who  was  after  a  while 
to  become  a  torch-bearer  of  learning,  started 
West  carrying  in  his  hand  a  copy  of  Shakes- 
peare which  had  been  overlooked  in  -the  packing 
up.  Having  migrated  to  Iowa  in  1855,  he  be- 
gan to  study  Latin  and  Greek  after  his  twenty- 
first  birthday,  and  entered  the  University  of 
Michigan  in  1857. 

(59) 


60  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

He  entered  from  a  private  academy  after  hur- 
ried preparation,  and  gave  me  long  afterwards 
the  impression  that  only  kindly  leniency  on  the 
part  of  his  examiners  let  him  into  the  univer- 
sity. It  was  only  necessary  to  get  in  "by  the 
skin  of  his  teeth" ;  ability,  zeal",  and  industry  did 
the  rest.  I  have  heard  him  say  that  only  the 
helpful  human  sympathy  of  Professor  Boise  on 
his  first  recitation  encouraged  him  to  hold  up  his 
head  after  that  first  failure.  Doubtless  this  en- 
couragement, that  never  failed  afterwards,  made 
the  man ;  and  how  grateful  he  always  was  to 
Boise !  Perhaps  even  his  lifelong  partiality  for 
Greek  studies  was  due  to  that.  He  worked  his 
way  through  college  by  manual  labor  and  serv- 
ice in  the  library,  but  found  time  to  read  as  well 
as  to  work  and  study,  for  in  his  freshman  year 
— as  he  said  once  to  the  students  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Wisconsin — he  saved  money  enough 
to  buy  a  dozen  good  books  in  general  literature, 
and  read  them. 

Graduated  in  1861,  he  went  on  to  the  Master's 
degree  in  1862;  was  then  appointed  instructor  in 
Latin  and  History,  assistant  professor  of  Histo- 
ry in  1863,  and  in  1867  full  professor  of  History, 
with  the  privilege  of  spending  a  year  and  a  half 
in  German  and  French  universities.  The  man  he 
succeeded  in  the  chair  of  History  was  the  then 


Charles  Kendall  Adams.  61 

young  Andrew  D.  White,  who  had  perhaps  chief- 
ly influenced  his  student  career,  determined  his 
choice  of  a  specialty,  nominated  him  for  his  own 
chair  on  leaving,  suggested  him,  I  think,  as  his 
successor  in  the  presidency  of  Cornell,  and  re- 
mained all  through  life  his  closest  friend.  Con- 
nected with  the  University  of  Michigan  twenty- 
eight  years  —  five  as  student,  twenty-three  as 
member  of  the  faculty — he  came  to  be  regarded 
perhaps  as  its  most  eminent  professor,  and  was 
Dean  of  the  School  of  Political  Science  from  its 
establishment  in  1881.  First  as  non-resident 
lecturer  on  History  at  Cornell  (1881-5),  and  la- 
ter as  president  (1885-92),  he  became  thorough- 
ly familiar  with  that  Eastern  institution,  which 
is  doubtless  most  nearly  of  the  style  of  the  West- 
ern state  university.  He  had  been  chairman,  too, 
of  the  building  committees  of  the  great  libraries 
of  the  University  of  Michigan  and  of  Cornell, 
something  significant  in  view  of  his  later  connec- 
tion with  that  beautiful  structure  which  will  re- 
main as  his  chief  monument  at  Madison — the  His- 
torical Library.  At  the  age  of  fifty-seven,  in  the 
maturity  of  his  powers,  learning,  and  experience 
in  affairs,  he  came  in  the  autumn  of  1892  to  the 
University  of  Wisconsin. 

A  paragraph  from  a  paper  which  I  prepared 
for    local    use    at    the    time    of    his    resignation 


62  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

(1901)  sums  up  some  of  the  qualities  of  the  man 
as  well  as  the  striking  results  of  his  nine  years' 
administration : 

Dr.  Bascom's  thirteen-year  administration  had  put 
the  young  institution  on  a  sound  basis  of  scholar- 
ship, had  filled  the  state  with  a  fine  body  of  alumni 
loyal  to  their  president  and  fond  of  their  alma  mater, 
and  had  made  inevitable  and  easy  the  transition  from 
a  small  college  to  a  big  university.  Dr.  Chamberlin's 
five-year  regime  had  been  marked  by  greatly  acceler- 
ated growth  in  numbers  and  development  of  univer- 
sity temper  and  spirit.  The  -latter  found  Science  Hall 
built,  and  lie  began  and  all  but  finished  the  Dairy 
Building,  Law  Building,  and  Gymnasium.  The  legis- 
latures of  1889  and  1891  had  made  notable  and  noble 
appropriations.  In  1893,  $140,000  was  added,  making 
possible  the  adequate  completion  and  outfit  of  the  edi- 
fices already  under  construction.  In  1895  catne  the 
phenomenal  appropriation — one-fifth  of  a  mill  tax  addi- 
tional (z.  e.,  interest  on  $2,cco,ooo)  for  two  years,  and 
$180,000  for  the  Historical  Library. 

In  1897  the  one-fifth  mill  tax  was  made  permanent, 
and  the  amount  for  the  Historical  Library  was  in- 
creased to  $420.000;  in  1889  $135,000  was  appropriated 
for  a  new  Engineering  Building,  and  for  the  agricul- 
tural heating  plant  and  to  complete  and  equip  the  His- 
torical Library  $200.000  more.  In  1901  about  $200,000 
was  appropriated,  of  which  $150.000  was  to  go  to  the 
construction  of  Agricultural  Hall,  the  remainder  to 
the  general  university  fund  and  to  engineering  im- 
provements. From  1890  to  1900  was  the  building  era 
of  the  university.  .  .  .  The  increase  of  the  students 


Charles  Kendall  Adams.  63 

and  faculty  has  been  quite  commensurate  with  the 
improvements  in  building.  In  1892  the  number  of  stu- 
dents was  1,092 — now  2;8oo;  of  instructors  and  other 
officers  in  1892,  73 — now,  168.  .  .  .  He  is  a  man  of 
fine  presence  and  distinguished  bearing,  affable,  a  good 
conversationalist,  has  for  many  years  been  given  to  en- 
tertaining notable  people;  and  so,  while  utterly  unas- 
suming, has  the  air  of  one  who  is  at  home  in  the  best 
company.  People  who  do  not  know  him  well  have 
sometimes  called  him  an  aristocrat.  On  the  platform 
he  never  makes  a  poor  speech,  and  sometimes  a  great 
one.  As  presiding  officer  at  a  banquet  he  has  few 
equals  within  my  knowledge.  In  social  matters  his 
administration  has  been  a  pronounced  success.  .  .  . 
But  he  is  also  a  great  executive  officer.  I  have  heard 
him  say  that  the  American  people  do  big  things  better 
than  they  do  little  ones.  Lesser  men  can  turn  off 
routine  business  quite  as  well  as  he;  his  preeminence 
is  in  planning  and  accomplishing  large  things. 

The  best  evidence  of  this  outwardly  is  the  great 
Historical  Library;  the  best  proof  of  it  inwardly  is 
the  vast  extension  of  facilities,  not  simply  to  meet  the 
great  increase  in  the  number  of  students,  but  to  make 
possible  the  most  advanced  work,  and  to  cause  the 
ablest  men  to  feel  that  Wisconsin  is  the  best  place  to 
stay  and  labor  in.  Some  of  the  newspapers  have  crit- 
icised sharply  at  times,  and  some  legislators  have  come 
from  the  people  to  make  a  fight ;  but  in  the  end  the 
majority  of  the  legislature  and  of  the  people  have 
come  over  to  his  ideas  and  his  ideals,  and  civic  pride 
in  the  university  has  enormously  increased.  The  fric- 
tion which  a  few  years  ago  existed  between  the  au- 
thorities of  the  lower  schools  and  the  university  seems 


64  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

now  to  have  disappeared  entirely,  and  a  cordial  and 
helpful  relation  has  taken  its  place. 

President  Adams  was  passionately  loyal  to, 
and  enthusiastically  confident  of,  the  great  fu- 
ture of  the  University  of  Wisconsin.  He  showed 
remarkable  capacity  in  choosing  members  of  the 
faculty  as  well  as  in  uniting  and  harmonizing 
them  in  the  common  work,  fostered  and  stimula- 
ted the  spirit  of  research  among  the  instructors, 
and  yet  would  remind  them  that  "the  university 
is  for  the  students,"  whose  instruction  should  not 
be  sacrificed  to  investigation.  His  zeal  for  ath- 
letics came  mainly  from  the  conviction  that  a 
maximum  of  clear  and  sane  thinking,  as  well  as 
the  most  moral  living,  is  not  to  be  expected  from 
men  in  poor  health.  His  manifest  and  well- 
known  sympathy  with  all  that  made  for  real  re- 
ligion in  the  university  was  but  the  outward  ex- 
pression of  inward  belief  and  consistent  home 
living. 

An  estimate  of  the  service  rendered  by  Presi- 
dent Adams  to  the  university  and  to  the  cause  of 
higher  education,  made  by  Dean  Birge  at  the  time 
of  his  resignation,  pleased  President  Adams 
above  all  appreciations  then  made  public.  It  is 
as  follows: 

President  Adams  was  one  of  the  first  men  in  this 
country  to  catch  the  spirit  and  temper  of  true  uni- 


Charles  Kendall  Adams.  65 

versity  study  and  administration.  This  spirit  he  em- 
bodied, first,  in  his  own  teaching;  and  this  temper,  as 
larger  opportunities  were  afforded  him,  he  carried  into 
the  institutions  of  which  he  has  been  the  head.  The 
university  temper  expresses  itself,  when  it  is  present, 
in  every  department  of  university  work,  from  the  fresh- 
man classes  to  the  graduate  courses.  It  was  by  no 
means  absent  from  our  university  in  the  years  before 
1892,  yet  it  has  received  a  mighty  impulse  and  stimulus 
from  the  example  and  teachings  of  President  Adams. 
This  internal  growth,  this  development  of  a  higher 
standard  of  scholarship  in  the  university,  has  been 
President  Adams's  great  contribution  to  the  intellectual 
life  of  the  state.  By  a  higher  standard  of  scholarship 
I  do  not  mean  the  exaction  of  more  work  from  the 
student  or  the  mere  'raising  of  the  standard'  in  the 
technical  sense,  but  a  lifting  of  the  institution  to  a 
truer  and  higher  intellectual  position.  This  is  the 
greatest  service  that  a  president  can  render  to  his  uni- 
versity, and  this  President  Adams  has  fully  rendered 
to  us.  To  this  end  all  his  measures  have  tended.  In 
carrying  out  this  main  purpose,  President  Adams  has 
shown  great  breadth  and  largeness  of  view.  He  has 
been  able  to  conceive  large  plans  for  the  university, 
which  he  has  boldly  executed.  Yet  he  has  never  striven 
to  enforce  his  own  ideas  upon  the  various  departments, 
aiming  rather  to  inspire  unity  and  harmony  of  spirit 
and  purpose  than  to  secure  a  similarity  in  method. 
Thus  he  has  been  able  to  win  and  hold  the  sympathy 
of  the  faculty  for  his  plans  and  their  cooperation  in 
working  them  out  and  applying  them  in  the  admin- 
istration and  the  teaching  of  the  university. 

President    Adams    was    stricken    down    about 


66  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

February  i,  1900,  and  was  never  at  the  helm 
for  more  than  a  day  or  two  at  a  time  after  that. 
After  weeks  of  suffering  at  home,  he  was  sent 
by  his  physicians,  first  to  Virginia,  then  to  Battle 
Creek,  Michigan,  and  finally  for  a  year  to  Italy 
and  Germany.  During  all  that  period  I  was  in 
constant  correspondence  with  him,  and  some  ex- 
tracts from  his  letters  may  be  used  to  illustrate 
his  absorbing  devotion  to  the  university,  and  to 
indicate  some  of  his  plans  and  ideals  in  educa- 
tional work.  He  was  trying  to  get  well  for  the 
sake  of  the  work  he  felt  he  had  still  to  do  at 
Madison,  and  every  movement  for  a  year  and 
a  half  was  determined  by  that.  He  abandoned 
a  contemplated  trip  from  Italy  to  Egypt,  "for 
the  reasons,"  he  wrote,  "of  the  twofold  fact  of 
my  continued  improvement  and  the  opinion  of 
the  doctor  that  I  should  probably  not  return 
from  Egypt  as  well  as  I  might  be  on  going.  I 
hope  that  in  the  spring  we  may  go  to  Athens 
and,  perhaps,  to  Sicily." 

By  January  I,  1901,  he  had  reached  his  nor- 
mal weight  again,  and  the  physician  who  had 
accompanied  him  from  Battle  Creek  returned 
home,  saying  that  it  was  "absurd  for  him  to  re- 
main longer."  "I  should  call  myself  entirely 
well,"  he  wrote,  "but  for  a  little  nervous  weak- 
ness, which,  I  suppose,  is  the  last  remnant  of  the 


Charles  Kendall  Adams.  67 

illness."  Nature  just  then  was  in  sympathy  with 
their  returning  health.  "The  climate  here  is 
charming,"  he  wrote.  "Roses,  heliotropes,  and 
oleanders  seem  not  to  know  any  such  thing  as 
winter.  Their  blossoms  are  now. upon  every  wall 
and  along  every  roadside.  To-day  we  sat  with 
our  windows  wide  open  to  the  floor,  and  many 
have  sat  among  the  flowers  in  the  garden." 
"What  a  country  it  is !"  he  wrote  again  in  Feb- 
ruary. 

As  I  write  at  midday  we  are  having  the  third  con- 
cert under  the  window ;  not  the  hand-organ — which 
seems  to  be  good  enough  only  for  America — but  by 
a  violin  and  a  singer,  both  fit  for  the  stage.  There  are 
tears  and  laughter  and  exultation,  all  expressed  with 
the  fire  of  an  operatic  training.  Of  such  concerts  we 
must  have  about  five  a  day,  and,  strangely  enough,  do 
not  quite  tire  of  them.  There  is  a  picturesqueness 
about  the  whole  matter  that  is  almost  bewitching. 

Some  extracts  from  letters  of  that  period  il- 
lustrate one  of  President  Adams'  abiding  inter- 
ests in  matters  of  higher  education — i.  e.,  clas- 
sical studies.  When  urging  me  to  come  to  Madi- 
son in  1894,  he  said  that  in  a  college  course  one 
language  at  least  was  especially  deserving  of 
favor  as  embodying  and  representing  pure  cul- 
ture of  the  highest  kind,  and  that  language  to 
his  mind  had  always  been  the  Greek.  "I  invite 


68  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

you  to  a  larger  field,  and  it  is  your  duty  to 
come,"  he  said  with  great  emphasis;  and  I  was 
practically  won  at  once.  Some  time  later,  Dr. 
B.  I.  Wheeler  wrote  me :  ''President  Adams  will 
give  the  most  earnest  support.  You  will  find 
him  a  loyal,  sound,  wise  man."  During  the  eight 
years  that  followed,  I  found  his  zeal  for  classical 
studies  always  unabated.  The  last  thing  he  did 
for  the  university  was  to  organize  the  School  of 
Commerce;  and  it  might  have  seemed  that  he, 
too,  was  swamped  by  the  wave  of  commercialism 
that  was  sweeping  over  the  country.  But  he  sent 
Dean  Johnson  of  the  College  of  Engineering, 
his  chief  agent  in  the  new  venture,  to  consult 
with  me,  and  called  me  to  his  sick  bed  to  say 
that  "he  did  not  want  some  of  us  who  stood  for 
ideal  things  to  think  that  the  university  was  to 
be  wholly  given  over  to  the  material  and  prac- 
tical." And  a  year  later  he  wrote  me  from  Italy 
(March  22,  1901)  : 

I  note  all  you  say  in  regard  to  its  being  a  technical 
year.  But  I  want  the  university  not  to  be  swamped 
by  a  spirit  of  commercialism.  Every  interest  should  be 
encouraged.  What  men  have  accomplished  is  quite  as 
important  as  what  they  are  accomplishing. 

In  1894  he  had  led  me  to  hope  that  we  might 
have  some  day  at  the  University  of  Wisconsin 
a  classical  museum :  and  this  matter  was  much 


Charles  Kendall  Adams.  69 

on  his  mind  when  he  was  abroad — without  any 
urging  from  me,  it  may  be  said,  for  I  never 
found  it  necessary  to  remind  him  of  promises. 
February  7,  1901,  he  said  in  a  postscript  to  a 
letter : 

I  came  within  an  inch  of  forgetting  one  of  my  er- 
rancls  in  writing.  Before  I  left  Madison  I  asked  the 
Regents  to  allow  me  to  use  the  balance  of  my  salary 
— i.  e.,  what  was  really  saved  by  my  absence — in  the 
purchase  of  plaster  casts  for  a  classical  museum  in  the 
new  library  building.  The  answer  was  that  I  must 
not  trouble  myself  with  anything  of  the  kind  till  I 
was  really  well.  In  so  far  as  this  was  prompted  by 
a  consideration  for  me,  I  appreciated  it,  and  of  course 
there  was  no  answer  to  give.  But  the  time  has  come 
when  no  such  answer  suffices.  All  the  manufactories 
in  the  world  are  glad  to  decorate  Johnson's  building 
[Engineering  Hall]  ;  but  Socrates  and  Demosthenes 
can't  send  their  photographs,  nor  can  Phidias  send  his 
architectural  designs.  Consequently  such  things  either 
have  to  be  bought,  or  we  are  in  danger  of  being  snowed 
completely  under  by  a  spirit  of  commercialism.  Car- 
negie and  Rockefeller  will  perish,  but  there  are  some 

others  that  will  remain.     I  recently  wrote  that 

I  should  be  greatly  disappointed  if  I  were  not  permitted 
to  make  the  expenditures.  If  I  could  spend,  say,  $i,- 
ooo  for  photographs  and  $2,500,  or  such  a  matter,  for 
statuary,  my  illness  will  not  have  been  without  ad- 
vantage. 

Meanwhile  a  change  had  taken  place.  Winter 
came  suddenly;  Mrs.  Adams  was  stricken  down 


70  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

with  asthma;  her  illness  was  long  and  his  sym- 
pathy intense,  so  that  he  was  never  quite  so  well 
again.  Still  he  maintained  the  struggle  for 
health.  Seven  months  later,  when,  under  the 
impression  that  his  health  was  far  better  than  it 
was,  I  had  urged  his  being  here  to  meet  the 
Board  of  Regents  in  September,  he  replied : 

Ever  since  January  5  we  have  been  fighting  the  bat- 
tle to  get  into  condition  to  resume  work  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  year.  In  the  case  of  my  wife  the  battle 
cannot  be  said  to  have  been  successful — at  least  the 
improvement  has  been  so  capricious  and  slow  that  up 
to  the  arrival  of  your  letter  it  seemed  uncertain  what 
the  true  course  should  be.  I  have  been  confronted 
with  the  dilemma  of  either  going  back  without  her  or 
delaying  the  voyage  in  the  hope  of  further  improve- 
ment. I  have  too  much  dread  of  an  avenging  Nemesis 
to  undertake  the  former  course. 

They  decided  to  come  home  together,  and  that 
last  letter  from  Germany  concluded  thus: 

Of  one  thing  I  wish  to  assure  you.  Every  move- 
ment, except  my  shortest  possible  journey  to  Glasgow, 
has  been  dictated  by  considerations  of  health.  .  .  . 
It  has,  beyond  all  question,  been  the  most  anxious  and 
disappointing  year  of  my  life.  In  spite  of  all  these 
facts,  I  shall  attempt  to  be  present  at  the  meeting  of 
the  Board. 

The  provision  in  his  last  will  and  testament 
directing  that  five  of  the  fifteen  five-hundred- 


Charles  Kendall  Adams.  Jl 

dollar  fellowships,  to  the  establishment  of  which 
he  devoted  his  entire  estate,  should  go  to  the 
department  of  Greek,  is  the  final  proof  of  his 
belief  in  the  value  of  Greek  culture. 

He  and  Mrs.  Adams  reached  Madison  in  Sep- 
tember in  time  for  the  meeting  of  the  Board. 
Dean  Johnson,  Mr.  Hiestand,  and  I  met  them  at 
the  station.  Waiting  by  the  car  for  them  to  get 
off,  I  said  to  Mr.  Hiestand,  as  I  heard  the  Presi- 
dent's voice :  "It  has  the  old  ring !"  But  when 
his  face  appeared,  I  was  shocked  to  see  how  he 
had  aged  in  a  single  year.  That  was  Saturday 
night.  The  next  morning  he  telephoned  me  to 
come  and  dine  with  him  and  Mrs.  Adams. 
When  I  went  at  noon,  I  found  he  had  already 
been  conferring  with  Dean  Henry  about  Pro- 
fessor F.  H.  King's  call  to  Washington.  With 
such  vigor  he  instantly  resumed  his  duties.  He 
felt  equal  to,  and  eager  for,  the  accustomed  bur- 
dens. "I  could  run  two  universities !"  he  said 
to  Mr.  Stevens.  But  he  was  apprehensive  about 
Mrs.  Adams. 

The  first  severe  test  of  his  powers  came  short- 
ly— the  opening  Convocation  Address  to  the  stu- 
dents, an  occasion  to  which  he  had  been  looking 
forward  for  months.  The  meeting  was  held  in 
the  Armory,  and  he  spoke  for  forty-five  minutes 
connectedly,  clearly,  and  logically.  It  was  a 


72  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

good  speech,  but  it  seems  he  came  through  by 
sheer  force  of  will.  He  looked  somewhat  dazed 
at  the  conclusion,  but  I  felt  no  uneasiness  at  the 
moment.  But  his  wife's  womanly  instinct  di- 
vined instantly  what  had  happened,  for  as  he  ap- 
proached the  house  she  said  she  knew  it  was  all 
over.  Under  the  first  severe  strain  he  had  bro- 
ken down.  Serious  illness  followed,  and  the  old 
trouble  returned.  As  soon  as  the  Regents  could 
be  got  together,  he  resigned.  The  night  before 
the  resignation  was  formally  laid  before  the 
Board  he  telephoned  for  me  to  come,  and  told 
me  what  he  had  done.  Tears  fell  as  he  spoke, 
and  he  looked  a  gray  and  aged  and  broken  man. 
It  was  very  hard.  He  had  hoped  to  serve  the 
University  till  he  was  seventy-five,  nine  years 
longer,  and  he  had  great  plans  for  it.  Now  it 
was  all  over.  I  knew  his  heart  was  broken,  but 
he  did  not  murmur.  When  a  few  weeks  later 
his  train  had  started  for  California,  and  Dr. 
Birge  and  I  turned  homeward,  I  said :  "We  shall 
see  his  face  no  more !" 

His  last  letter  to  me  is  pathetic,  in  view  of 
what  happened  so  shortly  after. 

We  are  beginning  to  get  ready  to  move  into  the 
new  house  [he  wrote,  June  21].  Probably  in  two 
weeks  we  shall  be  in  our  own  home.  My  wife  looks 
forward  with  great  pleasure  to  the  new  life,  and  I 


Charles  Kendall  Adams.  73 

hope  it  will  be  in  every  way  beneficial.     .     .     .     Neither 
of  us  is  in  the  best  condition. 

Early  in  July  they  moved  into  the  new  house 
they  had  built,  and  on  the  26th  he  passed  away. 

In  one  of  his  later  letters  there  is  a  reference 
to  the  book  of  resolutions — with  signatures  of 
all  the  faculty — prepared  in  consequence  of  his 
resignation,  and  with  that  I  may  close : 

The  Cardinal  book  touched  me  so  deeply  I  have 
hardly  dared  to  venture  on  a  formal  acknowledgment ; 
but  I  must  do  so  without  much  delay.  Especially  grat- 
ifying was  the  note  preceding  the  signatures  them- 
selves. As  a  whole  I  believe  the  work  to  be  unique. 
Surely  our  dear  old  Patrick  [janitor]  would  have 
called  it  a  "wonderful  char-ac-ter  from  me  last  place !" 
God  bless  you  all ! 


V. 
THE  NATIONAL  HERO. 

"WE  must  have  a  revival  of  patriotism,"  more 
than  one  thoughtful  man  has  been  heard  to 
say.  If  this  be  true,  what  is  the  best  method 
of  cultivating  love  of  and  pride  in  the  father- 
land? The  old  Greeks  had  the  good  habit  of 
telling  over  and  over  again  the  heroic  deeds  of 
their  ancestors  in  order  to  kindle  and  nourish 
the  sacred  flame  of  patriotism,  and  since  then  all 
nations  that  have  had  a  past  have  done  the  same. 
We  are  too  close  to  the  Civil  War  period  to  see 
things  calmly,  to  judge  impartially,  to  forget  all 
the  trial  and  stress  and  suffering.  Southern  men, 
it  is  true,  are  beginning  to  recognize  that  Lincoln 
was  second  only  to  Washington,  and  Northern 
men  to  acknowledge  that  the  nation's  greatest 
soldier  was  Lee.  But  only  the  unprejudiced  on 
either  side  see  thus  clearly.  The  wrhole  nation 
can,  however,,  join  in  admiration  of  its  founders, 
and  the  unusual  attention  now  bestowed  on 
American  history  is  sure  to  produce  good  fruits. 
The  volumes  of  the  "American  Statesmen"  se- 
ries, especially,  are  not  only  giving  us  correct  his- 
(74)  ' 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON. 


The  National  Hero.  75 

tory,  but  they  are  proving  a  fine  school  for 
patriotism.  It  is  to  one  of  the  bipgraphies  of  this 
series  that  I  am  indebted  for  the  suggestion  of 
writing,  as  well  as  for  most  of  the  facts  in  this 
paper,1  namely,  "George  Washington,"  by  Henry 
Cabot  Lodge. 

Mr.  Gladstone  is  reported  to  have  said : 

It  is  no  extravagance  to  say  that  although  there  were 
only  two  millions  of  people  in  the  thirteen  states  at  the 
time  of  the  Revolution,  the  group  of  statesmen  that 
proceeded  from  them  were  a  match  for  any  in  the  whole 
history  of  the  world,  and  were  superior  to  those  of  any 
one  epoch. 

It  might  be  difficult  for  any  one  except  a  Vir- 
ginian to  give  the  reason  why,  but  it  is  at  any 
rate  a  fact,  that  Virginia  furnished  far  more  than 
her  quota  of  the  remarkable  group  of  Revolution- 
ary statesmen.  Mr.  Roosevelt  (in  his  "Gouver- 
neur  Morris,"  page  325)  goes  further,  and  says: 

Virginia  stands  easily  first  among  all  our  common- 
wealths for  the  statesmen  and  warriors  she  has  brought 
forth ;  and  it  is  noteworthy  that  during  the  long  con- 
test between  the  nationalists  and  separatists,  which 
forms  the  central  fact  in  our  history  for  the  first  three- 
quarters  of  a  century  of  our  national  life,  she  gave 
leaders  to  both  sides  at  the  two  great  crises — Washing- 
ton and  Marshall  to  the  one,  and  Jefferson  to  the  other 

1  Published  January,  1890. 


76  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

— when  the  question  was  one  of  opinion  as  to  whether 
the  Union  should  be  built  up,  and  when  the  appeal  to 
arms  was  made  to  tear  it  down,  Farragut1  and  Thomas 
to  the  North,  Lee  and  Jackson  to  the  South. 

It  is  furthermore  remarkable  that  so  many  of 
Virginia's  early  great  men  came  from  the  single 
county  of  Westmoreland,  "the  prolific  soil  that 
grows  Presidents,"  as  Governor  Barbour,  of  Vir- 
ginia, used  to  say,  in  allusion  to  the  fact  that 
Westmoreland  county  furnished  three  of  the  first 
five  Presidents. 

What  Boston  was  to  Massachusetts  [says  Magruder 
in  his  "John  Marshall"]  Westmoreland  was  to  the  other 
counties  of  Virginia;  the  birthplace  and  home  of  the 
Washingtons,  the  Lees,  the  Masons,  the  Taliaferros, 
the  Marshalls,  the  Madisons,  the  Monroes,  the  Gray- 
sons,  the  Roanes,  the  Beverlys,  the  Bankheads,  the 
Balls,  the  McCartys,  the  Elands,  and  the  Carters,  it 
became  a  sentinel  on  the  watchtower  of  liberty — the 
herald  to  announce  the  appproach  of  danger. 

It  was  not  so  remarkable,  perhaps,  that  Vir- 
ginia's statesmen  belonged,  as  a  rule,  to  what  is 
called  the  gentleman  class.  That  had  been  true 
of  most  of  the  great  statesmen  of  all  the  leading 
countries  of  the  world.  It  was  eminently  true 
even  of  democratic  Athens ;  not  less  true,  of 

'Mistake;  Farragut  was  a  Tennes-sean  by  birth. 


The  National  Hero.  77 

course,  of  aristocratic  and  imperial  Rome.  It 
had  been  true  of  France  and  Austria  and  Prussia 
and  England.  It  was  certainly  true  in  the  Revo- 
lutionary period  of  New  York  and  South  Caro- 
lina, as  well  as  of  Virginia,  and  doubtless  of 
other  states. 

From  the  slaveholding  aristocracy  of  Virginia  came 
[,says  Mr.  Lodge],  with  the  exception  of  Patrick  Henry, 
all  the  great  men  of  that  state  who  did  so  much  for 
American  freedom,  and  who  rendered  such  imperish- 
able service  to  the  republic  in  law,  in  politics,  and  in 
war.  From  this  aristocracy  came  Marshall  and  Mason 
and  Madison,  the  Lees,  the  Randolphs,  the  Harrisons, 
and  the  rest.  From  it  came  al-so  Thomas  Jefferson,  the 
hero  of  American  democracy ;  and  to  it  was  added 
Patrick  Henry,  not  by  lineage,  or  slaveholding,  but  by 
virtue  of  his  brilliant  abilities,  and  because  he,  too,  was 
an  aristocrat,  by  the  immutable  division  of  race. 

It  would  be  an  interesting  question,  now,  to 
consider  why  the  so-called  upper  classes  have 
produced  most  of  the  great  statesmen  of  the 
world.  Genius  has  shown  itself  in  other  respects 
no  respecter  of  persons.  From  Homer  to  Burns, 
and  from  Burns  to  Joel  Chandler  Harris,  the 
Muse  has  touched  the  lips  of  the  humble  quite  as 
often  as  of  the  highborn  infant.  The  humbler 
class  has  furnished,  too,  not  a  few  of  the  world's 
great  generals:  Marius,  Murat,  Jackson,  Grant, 
Forrest,  and  many  others.  The  main  reason  is, 


78  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

doubtless,  that  in  most  countries  the  career  in 
statecraft  has  been  practically  closed  against  all 
but  aristocrats,  or  at  least  has  been  hedged  about 
with  greater  hindrances  than  other  careers.  In 
those  states  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution  where 
there  was  a  powerful  aristocracy,  as  in  Virginia, 
South  Carolina,  and  New  York,  this  class  nat- 
urally put  forward  the  public  men.  Even  in  that 
day  it  was  different  in  democratic  New  England ; 
and  as  democracy  has  spread  over  the  rest  of  the 
states  we  find  that  birth  has  had  little  to  do  with 
the  making  of  statesmen.  Witness  Webster  from 
Massachusetts,  Clay  from  Kentucky,  Calhoun 
from  South  Carolina,  Andrew  Jackson  from  Ten- 
nessee, Lincoln  from  Illinois,  Stephens  from 
Georgia,  and  Garfield  from  Ohio. 

Another  characteristic  of  the  Revolutionary 
statesmen  was  their  high  culture.  Washington 
attained  his  preeminent  position  amid  a  group 
of  men  distinguished  above  all  the  statesmen  of 
this  country,  not  only  by  their  mental  endowment, 
but  in  the  fact  that  a  large  majority  were  college- 
bred  men.  There  were  a  few  striking  exceptions, 
it  is  true,  like  Roger  Sherman ;  but  of  all  the 
group  the  greatest  had  the  smallest  educational 
opportunities. 

One  other  group  of  great  men,  limited  neither 
by  age  nor  clime,  Washington  belonged  to.  It 


The  National  Hero.  79 

has  been  often  remarked  that  the  greatest  states- 
men and  generals  of  the  world,  the  doers  par  ex- 
cellence, have  been  generally  silent  men.  "Car- 
lyle,"  says  Mr.  Lodge,  "crying  out  through  hun- 
dreds of  pages  and  myriads  of  words  for  the 
'silent  man,'  passed  by  with  a  sneer  the  most  ab- 
solutely silent  great  man  that  history  can  show." 
Conspicuous  in  that  august  list  of  mighty  men  of 
war  and  statecraft  are,  besides  Washington,  our 
own  Lee  and  Jackson,  as  well  as  Grant;  Crom- 
well and  Wellington  in  England;  Napoleon  in 
France ;  Frederick  the  Great  and  Moltke  and  Bis- 
marck in  Germany ;  Julius  Caesar  in  Rome ;  Han- 
nibal in  Carthage;  Pericles  in  Athens;  Moses 
among  the  Hebrews. 

Mr.  Lodge,  like  all  the  later  biographers  of 
Washington,  is  hard  upon  Weems.  If  there  was 
anything  left  before  of  the  Weems  myths,  Mr. 
Lodge  demolishes  it.  He  has  studied  Washing- 
ton's career  very  minutely  for  years,  and  he  tells 
us  there  is  no  evidence  not  only  for  the  plant-bed 
episode,  for  the  cherry  tree  and  little  hatchet,  for 
Washington's  refusal  to  fight  at  school,  but  even 
for  the  colt-breaking.  In  the  first  place,  Weems 
was  "mendacious,"  if  not  a  regular  liar.  He 
published  himself  as  rector  of  Mount  Vernon 
parish,  though  there  was  no  such  parish.  He 
may  have  preached  once,  possibly  oftener,  to  a 


80  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

congregation  when  George  Washington  was 
present,  but  that  is  all.  Hence  we  must  receive 
what  the  scribbling  parson  says  cum  grano  salts. 
Furthermore,  the  story  of  the  initials  in  the  plant- 
bed,  by  which  Washington's  father  inculcated  in 
the  little  George  a  profound  belief  in  God,  is 
taken  bodily  from  Dr.  Beattie's  sketch  of  his  son, 
published  in  England  in  1799.  The  only  author- 
ities for  Weems'  stories  of  the  cherry  tree  and 
the  refusal  to  fight  at  school  are  "a  lady"  and  "a 
good  old  gentleman,"  who  remembered  the  inci- 
dents ;  but,  with  the  light  thrown  by  "Mount 
Yernon  parish"  and  the  plant-bed  episode  on 
Weems'  character  for  historical  fidelity,  the 
lady"  and  "good  old  gentleman"  can  hardly  be 
accepted  as  competent  witnesses.  Then  the  colt 
story,  which  Mr.  Curtis  tells,  was  a  century 
old  when  he  told  it,  and  there  is  not  even  a 
"lady"  or  a  "good  old  gentleman"  to  vouch  for 
it.  The  episodes  of  the  cherry  tree  and  the  colt- 
breaking  might  have  happened,  of  course,  only 
there  is  no  evidence  that  they  did.  As  to  the 
story  of  the  refusal  to  fight  and  lecturing  his 
playmates  on  the  sin  of  fighting,  we  can  be  quite 
sure.  Washington  was  a  most  unfortunate  se- 
lection for  the  hero  of  such  a  goody-goody  story. 
This  same  Washington,  son  of  an  "imperious 
woman,  of  strong  will,"  the  Washington  in  whose 


The  National  Hero.  8l 

compression  of  the  mouth  and  indentations  of 
the  brow  the  actor  Bernard  read,  in  1798,  the 
evidence  of  an  "habitual  conflict  with  and  mas- 
tery over  passion,"  is  said  not  only  to  have  re- 
fused to  fight  a  boy  at  school,  but  to  have  allowed 
himself  to  be  knocked  down  in  the  presence  of 
his  soldiers  in  1754,  and  thereupon  to  have 
begged  his  assailant's  pardon !  This  mild  Wash- 
ington of  Mr.  Weems  is  the  same  man  who 
some  years  later  wrote  to  the  major  of  his  old 
regiment,  who  had  been  excluded  from  the  pub- 
lic thanks  on  account  of  cowardice  at  the  Great 
Meadows : 

Your  impertinent  letter  was  delivered  to  me  yester- 
day. As  I  am  .not  accustomed  to  receive  such  from  any 
man,  nor  would  have  taken  the  same  language  from  you 
personally  without  letting  you  feel  some  marks  of  my 
resentment,  I  would  advise  you  to  be  cautious  in  writ- 
ing me  a  second  of  the  same  tenor. 

Some  years  later  still,  this  patient  Washington, 
when  covered  by  the  gun  of  a  poacher,  "dashed 
his  horse  headlong  into  the  water,  seized  the  gun, 
grasped  the  canoe,  and,  dragging  it  ashore, 
pulled  the  man  out  of  the  boat  and  beat  him 
soundly." 

This  self-contained  Washington  once  during 
the  war,  as  Judge  Marshall  used  to  tell,  sent  an 
officer  to  cross  a  river  in  quest  of  information 
6 


82  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

about  the  enemy  by  which  the  morrow's  action 
was  to  be  guided.  When  the  man  some  time  later 
brought  word  to  the  General,  who  was  meanwhile 
impatiently  pacing  his  tent,  that  the  dark  and 
stormy  night  and  the  ice  in  the  river  had  pre- 
vented his  crossing,  "Washington  glared  at  him 
a  moment,  seized  a  large  leaden  inkstand  from 
the  table,  hurled  it  at  the  offender's  head,  and 
said,  with  a  fierce  oath,  'Be  off,  and  send  me  a 
man !' }>  It  is  needless  to  add  that  the  officer 
crossed  the  river  and  got  the  information. 

Another  anecdote  of  the  same  character  is  told 
by  Colonel  Reese,  of  Nashville,  to  whom  it  came 
by  oral  tradition  from  a  senatorial  ancestor  of 
his.  Washington,  it  seems,  was  one  day  after 
dinner,  at  which  several  ladies  and  gentlemen 
were  present,  reading  some  attacks  of  the  op- 
position newspapers  on  him,  when,  losing  his 
temper,  he  struck  the  table  a  terrible  blow  with 
his  hand,  so  that  the  glasses  rattled  and  the  ladies 
started  up  in  alarm,  and  swore  that  he  would  not 
stand  it  any  longer.  After  pacing  the  floor  for 
a  few  moments,  he  became  calm  and  excused 
himself.  Such  a  man  could  hardly  develop  out 
of  Weems'  good,  cool-blooded  prig  of  a  boy. 

Chancellor  Garland,  whose  recollection  covered 
half  the  period  since  Washington  was  a  boy, 
gave  a  description  of  Virginia  schoolboys  of 


The  National  Hero.  83 

his  day,  which  is  doubtless  equally  true  of  those 
of  the  period  seventy-five  years  earlier.  Advising 
the  students  one  morning  never  to  wear  pistols, 
on  the  ground  that  it  was  a  practice  worthy  only 
of  cowards  and  bullies,  and  liable  to  lead  to  seri- 
ous results  when  the  blood  was  hot,  he  said : 

When  I  was  a  boy,  we  used  to  get  mad  and  fight, 
but  we  fought  fair.  We  struck  straight  from  the  shoul- 
der, and  one  got  the  other  down  and  pommeled  him  till 
he  cried,  "Enough !"  And  a  fellow  would  have  been 
disgraced  who  struck  his  prostrate  foe  after  he  said 
"Enough."  We  used  to  fight  in  that  way  [said  the  old 
gentleman,  warming  up  with  reminiscences  of  the  first 
quarter  of  the  century],  and  I  have  yet  to  see  that  there 
was  any  great  harm  in  settling  difficulties  after  that 
fashion. 

Not  only  was  Washington  high-tempered,  but 
he  was  a  thorough  boy  in  at  least  one  other  re- 
spect; he  fell  in  love  early  and  often.  One  of 
his  schoolmates,  who  was  wont  to  speak  of  him 
as  unusually  studious  and  industrious,  recalled 
one  occasion  when  he  surprised  his  playmates  by 
"romping  with  one  of  the  largest  girls."  It  is 
quite  certain  that  by  the  time  he  was  fourteen 
he  was  deeply  in  love  with  Mary  Bland,  his  "low- 
land beauty,"  as  he  called  her,  and  even  wrote 
verses  to  her.  Old  tradition  identified  the  "low- 
land beauty"  with  a  Miss  Grimes,  also  of  West- 


84  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

moreland,  and  there  are  some  "dear  Sally"  let- 
ters extant,  so  that  possibly  he  changed  the  des- 
ignation with  the  girl.  Here  is  the  style  in 
which  the  sixteen-year-old  lover  wrote  to  a 
friend : 

My  place  of  residence  at  present  is  at  his  Lord- 
ship's, where  I  might,  were  my  heart  disengaged,  pass 
my  time  very  pleasantly,  as  there  is  a  very  agreeable 
young  lady  in  the  same  house,  Colonel  George  Fairfax's 
wife's  sister.  But  that  only  adds  fuel  to  the  fire,  as  being 
often  and  unavoidably  in  company  with  her  revives  my 
former  passion  for  your  Lowland  Beauty;2  whereas, 
were  I  to  live  more  retired  from  young  women,  I  might 
in  -some  measure  alleviate  my  sorrow  by  burying  that 
chaste  and  troublesome  passion  in  oblivion;  I  am  very 
well  assured  that  this  will  be  the  only  antidote  or 
remedy. 

But  the  heart  of  our  melancholy  young  gen- 
tleman was  already  unfaithful  to  his  "lowland 
beauty,"  whether  he  knew  it  or  not,  and  for  a 
time  it  was  this  same  sister-in-law  of  George 
Fairfax,  Miss  Mary  Carey,  whose  image  occu- 
pied his  mind.  This  affair  continued,  off  and 

2"The  'Lowland  Beauty,'  Mary  Bland,"  says  Mr. 
Lodge,  "married  Henry  Lee,  and  became  the  mother  of 
'Legion  Harry,'  a  favorite  officer  and  friend  of  Wash- 
ington, and  the  grandmother  of  Robert  E.  Lee,  the 
great  soldier  of  the  Confederacy." 


The  National  Hero.  85 

on,  for  some  years.  But  certainly  not  later  than 
his  twentieth  year  he  had  found  another  girl  to 
his  taste,  for  he  wrote  to  William  Fauntleroy,  at 
Richmond,  that  he  hoped  for  a  revocation  of  the 
cruel  sentence  inflicted  by  his  sister,  Miss  Betsy. 
In  1756,  at  twenty- four,  when  he  made,  as  Colo- 
nel Washington,  his  first  trip  to  Boston,  he  fell 
in  love  at  short  notice  with  a  New  York  heiress, 
Mary  Philipse.  On  his  way  home  he  again  tar- 
ried in  New  York  for  the  sake  of  this  fair  lady, 
but  the  women  evidently  had  at  that  time  no 
idea  of  the  brilliant  future  in  store  for  the  young 
Virginian,  and  we  are  left  to  infer  that  the  New 
York  heiress  rejected  the  future  first  President. 
It  is  two  years  before  we  hear  of  another  lovv. 
affair,  but  this  time  he  was  to  meet  his  fate. 
In  the  spring  of  1758,  as  he  was  on  his  way 
with  dispatches  to  Williamsburg,  he  stopped  one 
day  to  dine  with  a  friend,  and  met  there  Martha 
Custis,  a  widow,  "young,  pretty,  intelligent,  and 
an  heiress."  Of  course  this  was  too  much  even 
for  an  Indian  fighter.  The  horses  were  brought 
out  in  the  afternoon,  but  the  young  people  talked 
on,  and  the  horses  finally  went  back  to  the  sta- 
ble. The  next  morning  he  rode  away,  but  on 
his  return  called  at  the  White  House  and  plight- 
ed his  troth  with  the  fair  widow.  He  had  been 
a  fickle  lover,  perhaps,  but  the  stately  lady  whom 


86  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

he  married  January  6,  1759.  found  him  constant 
in  his  devotion  to  the  end. 

As  to  Washington's  generalship,  Mr.  Roose- 
velt, in  his  life  of  Gouverneur  Morris  (page  52), 
contrasting  the  soldiers  of  the  Revolution  with 
those  of  the  Civil  War,  says : 

As  a  mere  military  man,  Washington  himself  cannot 
rank  with  the  wonderful  war-chief  who  for  four  years 
ied  the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia,  and  the  names  of 
Washington  and  Greene  fill  up  the  short  list  of  really 
good  Revolutionary  generals.  Against  these  the  Civil 
War  shows  a  roll  that  contains  not  only  Lee,  but  also 
Grant  and  Sherman,  Jackson  and  Johnston,  Thomas, 
Sheridan,  and  Farragut,  leaders  whose  volunteer  sol- 
diers and  sailors,  at  the  end  of  four  years'  service,  were 
ready  and  more  than  able  to  match  themselves  against 
the  best  regular  forces  of  Europe. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  is,  doubtless,  right  in  his  com- 
parison, and  yet  Washington  was  a  great  gen- 
eral. Like  William  the  Silent,  he  lost  most  of 
the  battles  he  fought.  Raw  militia,  such  as  he 
had  in  great  part,  could  not  be  expected,  espe- 
cially when  inferior  in  numbers,  to  hold  their 
own  with  disciplined  British  regulars.  But  the 
wonder  is  that  his  army  did  not  go  to  pieces 
after  the  battle  on  Long  Island,  or  amid  the  suf- 
ferings of  Valley  Forge.  There  were  some  bril- 
liant feats  of  generalship.  Of  the  Boston  cam- 
paign it  is  rightly  said: 


The  National  Hero.  87 

To  maintain  a  post  within  musket-shot  of  the  enemy 
for  six  months  together,  without  powder,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  disband  an  army  and  recruit  another  within 
that  distance  of  twenty  odd  British  regiments,  is  more, 
probably,  than  ever  was  attempted. 

And  yet  he  accomplished  it,  and  drove  the 
enemy  from  the  city.  Frederick  the  Great  is 
reported  to  have  called  the  Trenton  cam- 
paign the  most  brilliant  of  the  century.  Of  the 
Monmouth  campaign  Frederick  said :  "Clinton 
gained  no  advantage,  except  to  reach  New  York 
with  the  wreck  of  his  army.  America  is  proba- 
bly lost  for  England."  But  it  is  neither  Boston 
nor  Trenton  nor  Monmouth,  nor  even  York- 
town,  that  stamps  Washington  as  the  great  gen- 
eral. It  was  holding  that  army  together  after 
defeat  and  amid  the  most  terrible  destitution  and 
sufferings.  "His  cardinal  doctrine  was  that  the 
Revolution  depended  upon  the  existence  of  the 
army,  and  not  on  the  possession  of  any  partic- 
ular spot  of  ground,  and  his  masterly  adherence 
to  this  theory  brought  victory,  slowly  but  surely." 
His  greatest  feat  of  generalship,  as  of  states- 
manship, was  holding  the  army  together,  keep- 
ing the  superior  British  forces  confined  to  a  lim- 
ited area;  teaching  Congress  by  endless  letters 
what  to  do ;  begging,  entreating,  threatening  this 
body,  as  well  as  the  state  governments,  as  the 


88  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

need  of  money  and  supplies  became  more  and 
more  urgent;  striking  a  blow  now  and  then  to 
keep  up  the  courage  and  patriotism  of  his  coun- 
trymen. Nobody  has,  perhaps,  ever  seriously 
doubted  that  the  fate  of  the  Revolution  was  all 
the  time  in  the  hands  of  this  one  man,  and  its 
success  is  his  work,  in  a  measure  that  can  rarely 
be  said  of  one  man.  Nothing  could  daunt  the 
heaven-sent  deliverer — not  defeat,  not  lack  of 
supplies,  of  money,  of  munitions  of  war,  not  dis- 
banding troops,  nor  plots  against  himself,  nor 
treason. 

It  will  probably  never  be  accurately  known 
just  how  great  a  part  Washington  had  in  the 
framing  of  the  Constitution.  We  know  perfect- 
ly well  that  he  knew  that  the  salvation  of  the 
country  depended  on  the  adoption  of  some  form 
of  government  stronger  than  the  Articles  of 
Confederation.  We  know  from  a  remark  of  his 
reported  by  Gouverneur  Morris,  and  made  prob- 
ably just  before  the  convention  opened,  how  he 
felt: 

It  is  too  probable  that  no  plan  we  propose  will  be 
adopted.  Perhaps  another  dreadful  conflict  is  to  be  sus- 
tained. If,  to  plea-se  the  people,  we  offer  what  we  our- 
selves disapprove,  how  can  we  afterwards  defend  our 
work?  Let  us  raise  a  standard  to  which  the  wise  and 
honest  can  repair.  The  event  is  in  the  hand  of  God. 


The  National  Hero.  89 

But  Washington  was  not  a  talker.  He  had 
sat  silent  for  fifty-one  days  in  the  convention 
which  declared  war  and  made  him  commander 
of  the  Revolutionary  forces,  and  yet  Patrick 
Henry  had  said  of  him  then:  "If  you  speak  of 
solid  information  and  sound  judgment,  Colonel 
Washington  is  unquestionably  the  greatest  man 
on  the  floor."  Now,  he  presided  over  the  Con- 
stitutional Convention,  and  from  May  25  to  Sep- 
tember 17  spoke  but  once  (in  behalf  of  Gor- 
ham's  amendment).  And  yet  Air.  Lodge,  after 
thoroughly  investigating  the  whole  subject, 
thinks — an  opinion  shared  by  Mr.  Bancroft  in 
his  History  of  the  Constitution — that,  "without 
the  influence  and  the  labors  of  Washington  the 
Convention  of  1787,  in  all  probability,  would 
have  failed  of  success." 

As  first  President  of  the  United  States,  Wash- 
ington had,  of  course,  greater  difficulties  than 
could  ever  beset  any  of  his  successors.  Every- 
thing had  to  be  settled.  There  were  no  prece- 
dents. All  depended  on  the  good  sense  of  the 
Chief  Executive  and  his  advisers.  He  began  by 
choosing  the  ablest  Cabinet  that  ever  assembled 
around  any  President  at  the  national  capital. 
Good  sense  and  patriotism  and  the  loftiest  and 
most  unselfish  motives  characterized  all  his  pub- 
lic acts.  He  did  not  escape  criticism,  of  course. 


90  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

Only  a  weak  man  with  a  weak  policy  ever  does 
that.  A  bitter  opposition  soon  developed,  but  he 
never  swerved  from  what  he  conceived  to  be  the 
path  of  duty.  "He  judges  well,"  said  Pericles, 
"who  accepts  unpopularity  in  a  great  cause." 
Washington  had  accepted  unpopularity  in  the 
Revolution,  and  he  accepted  it  with  the  like 
equanimity  during  his  administration.  But  time 
always  brings  his  revenge  to  the  really  great 
and  honest  man,  and  most  men  have  long  ago 
acknowledged  what  Mr.  Lodge  so  well  says  with 
regard  to  the  administration  of  our  first  Presi- 
dent: 

When  Washington  went  out  of  office,  the  way  was 
open  to  the  Western  movement;  the  dangers  of  disinte- 
gration by  reason  of  foreign  intrigues  on  the  frontier 
were  removed ;  peace  had  been  maintained,  and  the 
national  sentiment  had  had  opportunity  for  rapid 
growth.  France  had  discovered  that,  although  she  had 
been  our  ally,  we  were  not  her  dependent ;  other  nations 
had  been  brought  to  perceive  that  the  United  States 
meant  to  have  a  foreign  policy  all  their  own ;  and  the 
American  people  were  taught  that  their  first  duty  was 
to  be  Americans  and  nothing  else. 

He  might  have  added  that  Washington,  in  his 
appointments,  set  the  highest  example  for  the 
proper  conduct  of  the  civil  service. 

How  did  the  great  man  look?     His  pictures 


The  National  Hero.  91 

/• 

do  not,  as  a  rule,  it  seems,  exhibit  the  strong- 
man we  expect  to  see.  Here  is  the  description 
Mr.  Lodge  gives  of  him  from  contemporary  tes- 
timony : 

Over  six  feet  high,  powerfully  built,  and  of  uncom- 
mon muscular  strength,  he  had  the  force  that  always 
comes  from  great  physical  power.  He  had  a  fine  head, 
a  strong  face,  with  blue  eyes  set  wide  apart  in  deep 
orbits,  and  beneath,  a  square  jaw  and  firm-set  mouth 
which  told  of  a  relentless  will.  Houdon,  the  sculptor, 
no  bad  judge,  said  he  had  no  conception  of  the  majesty 
and  grandeur  of  Washington's  form  and  features  until 
he  studied  him  as  a  subject  for  a  statue. 

Mrs.  John  Adams  thus  describes  to  her  hus- 
band the  appearance  of  Washington  when  he  as- 
sumed command  at  Cambridge: 

Dignity,  ease,  and  complacency,  the  gentleman  and 
the  soldier,  look  agreeably  blended  in  him.  Modesty 
marks  every  line  and  feature  of  his  face.  Those  lines 
of  Dryden  instantly  occurred  to  me : 

"Mark  his  majestic  fabric!     He's  a  temple 
Sacred  by  birth,  and  built  by  hands  divine ; 
His  soul's  the  deity  that  lodges  there ; 
Nor  is  the  pile  unworthy  of  the  God." 

Captain  David  Ackerson,  of  Alexandria,  Vir- 
ginia, thus  describes,  in  1811,  Washington's  ap- 
pearance, as  he  saw  him  three  days  before  the 
crossing  of  the  Delaware: 


92  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

Washington  had  a  large,  thick  nose,  and  it  was  very 
red  that  day,  giving  me  the  impression  that  he  was  not 
so  moderate  in  the  use  of  liquors  as  he  was  supposed 
to  be.  I  found  afterwards  that  this  was  a  peculiarity. 
His  nose  was  apt  to  turn  scarlet  in  a  cold  wind.  He 
was  standing  near  a  camp-fire,  evidently  lost  in  thought 
and  making  no  effort  to  keep  warm.  He  seemed  six 
feet  and  a  half  in  height,  was  as  erect  as  an  Indian, 
and  did  not  for  a  moment  relax  from  a  military  attitude. 
Washington's  exact  height  was  six  feet  two  inches  in 
his  boots.  He  was  then  a  little  lame  from  striking  his 
knee  against  a  tree.  His  eye  was  so  gray  that  it  looked 
almost  white,  and  he  had  a  troubled  look  on  his  color- 
less face.  He  had  a  piece  of  woolen  tied  around  his 
throat,  and  was  quite  hoarse.  Perhaps  the  throat  trou- 
ble from  which  he  finally  died  had  its  origin  about  then. 
Washington's  boots  were  enormous.  They  were  number 
thirteen.  His  ordinary  walking  shoes  were  number 
eleven.  His  hands  were  large  in  proportion,  and  he 
could  not  buy  a  glove  to  fit  him,  and  had  to  have  his 
gloves  made  to  order.  His  mouth  was  his  strong  fea- 
ture, the  lips  being  always  tightly  compressed.  That 
day  they  were  compressed  so  tightly  as  to  be  painful 
to  look  at.  At  that  time  he  weighed  two  hundred 
pounds,  and  there  was  no  surplus  flesh  about  him.  He 
was  tremendously  mu-scled,  and  the  fame  of  his  great 
strength  was  everywhere.  His  large  tent  when  wrapped 
up  with  the  poles  was  so  heavy  that  it  required  two 
men  to  place  it  in  the  camp-wagon.  Washington  would 
lift  it  with  one  hand  and  throw  it  in  the  wagon  as 
easily  as  if  it  were  a  pair  of  saddlebags.  He  could  hold 
a  musket  with  one  hand  and  shoot  with  precision  as 
easily  as  other  men  did  with  a  horse-pistol.  His  lungs 


The  National  Hero.  93 

were  his  weak  point,  and  his  voice  was  never  strong. 
He  was  at  that  time  in  the  prime  of  life.  His  hair  was 
a  chestnut  brown,  his  cheeks  were  prominent,  and  his 
head  was  not  large  in  contrast  to  every  other  part  of 
his  body,  which  seemed  large  and  bony  at  all  points. 
His  finger-joints  and  wrists  were  so  large  as  to  be 
genuine  curiosities.  As  to  his  habits  at  that  period  I 
found  out  much  that  might  be  interesting.  He  was  an 
enormous  eater,  but  was  content  with  bread  and  meat 
if  he  had  plenty  of  it.  But  hunger  seemed1  to  put  him 
in  a  rage.  It  was  his  custom  to  take  a  drink  of  rum  or 
whisky  on  awakening  in  the  morning.  Of  course  all 
this  was  changed  when  he  grew  old.  I  saw  him  at 
Alexandria  a  year  before  he  died.  His  hair  was  very 
g'ray,  and  his  form  was  slightly  bent.  His  chest  was 
very  thin.  He  had  false  teeth  which  did  not  fit,  and 
pushed  his  under  lip  outward. 

This  was  evidently  meant  to  be  a  faithful  de- 
scription, notwithstanding  minor  inaccuracies,  as, 
for  example,  the  color  of  the  eyes. 

Washington's  fatal  illness  was,  as  is  well 
known,  sudden  and  short.  He  took  cold  from 
riding  in  the  snow  and  rain  December  12,  1799, 
and  died  two  days  later  from  ccdematous  laryn- 
gitis (then  called  quinsy} — that  is,  he  was  slowly 
strangled  to  death  by  the  closing  of  the  throat. 
The  principal  remedy  tried  was  bleeding,  which 
did  no  good,  of  course.  He  was  seriously  ill 
only  twenty-four  hours,  and  realized  at  once 


94  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

that  the  end  was  near.3  He  gave  his  will  into  the 
keeping  of  his  wife,  gave  minute  directions  about 
the  disposition  of  his  papers,  and,,  when  nothing 
more  was  to  be  done,  calmly  awaited  the  end. 
"I  die  hard,"  he  said  to  Dr.  Craik,  "but  I  am  not 
afraid  to  go."  He  died  as  he  was  in  the  very  act 
of  counting  his  own  pulse. 

As  to  his  religious  faith,  Mr.  Lodge  says: 

3Dr.  F.  H.  Hooper  gives  (in  a  footnote,  Vol.  II., 
page  296,  of  Lodge's  "Washington")  the  following  in- 
teresting statement  as  to  the  disease :  "Washington's 
physicians  are  not  to  be  criticised  for  their  treatment, 
for  they  acted  according  to  their  best  light  and  knowl- 
edge. To  treat  such  a  case  in  such  a  manner  in  the  year 
1889  would  be  little  short  of  criminal.  At  the  present 
time  the  physicians  would  use  the  laryngoscope  and 
look  and  see  what  the  trouble  was.  (The  laryngoscope 
has  been  used  only  since  1857.)  In  this  disease  the 
function  most  interfered  with  is  breathing.  The  one 
thing  which  saves  a  patient  in  this  disease  is  a  timely 
tracheotomy.  (I  doubt  if  tracheotomy  had  ever  been 
performed  in  Virginia  in  Washington's  time.)  Wash- 
ington ought  to  have  been  tracheotomized,  or,  rather, 
that  is  the  way  cases  are  saved  to-day.  No  one  would 
think  of  antimony,  calomel,  or  bleeding  now.  The 
point  is  to  let  in  the  air,  and  not  to  let  out  the  blood. 
After  tracheotomy  has  been  performed,  the  oedema  and 
swelling  of  the  larynx  subside  in  three  to  six  days.  The 
tracheotomy  tube  is  then  removed,  and  respiration  goes 
on  through  the  natural  channels." 


The  National  Hero.  95 

He  had  been  brought  up  in  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church,  and  to  that  Church  he  always  adhered;  for  its 
splendid  liturgy  and  stately  forms  appealed  to  him  and 
satisfied  him.  He  loved  it,  too,  as  the  Church  of  his 
home  and  his  childhood,  and  yet  he  was  as  far  as  pos- 
sible from  being  sectarian,  and  there  is  not  a  word  of 
his  which  shows  anything  but  the  most  entire  liberality 
and  toleration.  He  made  no  parade  of  his  religion,  for 
in  this  as  in  other  things  he  was  perfectly  simple  and 
sincere.  He  was  tortured  by  no  doubts  or  questionings, 
but  believed  always  in  an  overruling  Providence  and  in 
a  merciful  God,  to  whom  he  knelt  and  prayed  in  the 
day  of  darkness  or  in  the  hour  of  triumph  with  a  su- 
preme and  childlike  confidence. 


VI. 

THE   SOUTH'S    IDEAL   HERO. 

PERHAPS  it  was  because  I  was  homesick  that  I 
took  to  reading  last  winter  about  the  noblest 
character  whom  my  native  Southland  has  yet 
produced.  I  am  conscious  that  I  have  per- 
haps idealized  Southern  character  in  the  course 
of  the  fourteen  years  that  I  have  been  away  from 
home,  and  I  wanted  to  refresh  and  confirm  my 
convictions  by  reading  the  story  of  that  supreme 
crisis  when  men's  souls  were  tried  and  General 
Robert  E.  Lee  was  our  foremost  man.  I  was  cu- 
rious, too,  to  see  whether  the  General  Lee  of  my 
boyish  enthusiasm  would  seem  the  same  under 
the  quieter  and  closer  scrutiny  of  middle  life.  I 
read  eagerly  book  after  book  on  the  Civil  War. 
Incidentally  I  have  recovered  some  of  my  lost 
youth,  and  have  recalled  the  moments  when  I 
saw  with  my  own  eyes  one  or  other  of  the  Con- 
federate heroes  whose  deeds  of  glory  I  have 
found  recorded  on  the  printed  page.  How  it 
quickens  your  interest  if  you  have  seen  in  the 
flesh  the  hero  you  read  about !  I  have  been  fully 
repaid  for  my  reading.  General  Lee  is  a  greater 
(96) 


ROI5EKT   EDWARD   LEE. 


The  South' s  Ideal  Hero.  97 

man,  a  more  stainless  character,  than  I  had  ever 
dreamed.  There  is  absolutely  no  littleness  about 
that  majestic  man.  He  was  worthy  of  the  un- 
paralleled devotion  of  his  army  and  his  people 
during  the  war,  and  the  best  thing  we  can  still 
do  for  the  formation  of  the  highest  ideals  of 
manhood  in  our  Southern  youth  is  to  call  and  re- 
call their  attention  to  our  stainless  hero.  I  nev- 
er saw  General  Lee,  but  it  is  perhaps  pardonable 
if  under  the  impulse  of  my  present  enthusiasm  I 
group  together  some  of  the  most  striking  facts 
in  the  life  of  the  great  soldier  who  is  probably  to 
be  forever  the  South's  ideal  of  manhood. 

Robert  E.  Lee  was  always  good :  a  model  boy, 
an  exemplary  youth,  a  man  of  stainless  life.  No 
one  was  ever  heard  to  censure  his  conduct  or  his 
character.  At  school  preparing  for  West  Point 
he  was  "never  behind  at  his  studies,  never  failed 
in  a  single  recitation."  At  West  Point  he  never 
received  a  demerit ;  was  adjutant  of  the  corps, 
the  post  of  honor  in  his  senior  year,  and  grad- 
uated second  in  his  class.  "He  was  the  most 
punctual  man  I  ever  knew,"  said  his  son.  "He 
was  always  ready  for  family  prayers,  and  at  all 
meal  times,  and  met  every  engagement,  business 
or  social,  on  the  moment."  From  him  was  heard 
"never  a  word  that  might  not  have  been  uttered 
in  the  presence  of  the  most  refined  woman."  He 
7 


98  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

never  drank  liquor.  A  bottle  of  fine  old  whisky 
which  a  Virginia  lady  persuaded  him  to  take  to 
the  Mexican  War  he  brought  back  unopened. 
In  1861  a  friend  from  Norfolk  forced  upon  him 
two  bottles  of  good  old  "London  Dock"  brandy, 
but  these  he  kept  untouched  all  through  the  war 
until  compelled  to  use  them  during  a  severe  ill- 
ness of  one  of  his  daughters  after  the  war. 
Alexander  Stephens,  who  was  greatly  impressed 
with  the  manly  soldier  on  his  first  interview, 
when  seeking  to  win  him  to  the  service  of  the 
newly  formed  Confederate  States  government, 
says: 

I  did  not  know  then  that  he  used  no  stimulants,  was 
free  even  from  the  use  of  tobacco,  and  that  he  was  ab- 
solutely stainless  in  his  private  life.  I  did  not  know, 
as  I  do  now,  that  he  had  been  a  model  youth  and  young 
man ;  but  I  had  before  me  the  most  manly  and  entire 
gentleman  T  ever  saw. 

General  Lee  was  five  feet  and  eleven  inches  in 
height  and  weighed  usually  about  one  hundred 
and  seventy-five  pounds.  In  the  Mexican  cam- 
paign, when  about  forty  years  of  age,  "he  was," 
says  General  Wilcox,  "in  full  manly  vigor,  and 
the  handsomest  man  in  the  army."  Fifteen  years 
later  (1863)  Stonewall  Jackson  said  of  him: 
"General  Lee  is  the  most  perfect  animal  form  I 


The  South's  Ideal  Hero.  99 

ever  saw."    Dr.  J.  William  Jones  says  of  him  in 
1862: 

At  this  time  General  Lee  was  certainly  one  of  the 
most  superb-looking  soldiers  the  world  ever  saw.  I  had 
first  seen  him  on  the  day  when  he  came  to  offer  his 
sword  to  the  state  that  gave  him  birth — the  home  of  his 
love.  Then  he  had  a  smooth  face,  save  a  moustache, 
and  his  hair  had  only  a  few  silver  threads  in  it.  Now 
he  had  a  full  beard,  and  that  and  his  hair  were  as  white 
as  the  driven  snow ;  but  his  graceful,  knightly  bearing, 
and  his  eagle  eye,  and  the  very  expression  of  his  coun- 
tenance, all  betokened  mingled  firmness  and  gentleness 
and  showed  him  the  true  soldier.  But  when  mounted 
he  sat  his  horse  with  easy  grace,  seemed  indeed  a  part 
of  the  horse,  and  was  the  finest  horseman  I  ever  saw. 

"Traveler,"  said  Captain  W.  Gordon  McCabe, 
"always  stepped  as  if  conscious  that  he  bore  a 
king  upon  his  back." 

In  the  Mexican  War  he  made  a  great  impres- 
sion upon  the  whole  army  and  especially  upon 
General  Scott.  He  received  repeatedly  honor- 
able mention  in  the  commanding  general's  re- 
ports and  was  three  times  promoted.  When  a 
public  reception  was  tendered  General  Scott  by 
the  city  of  Richmond  after  the  Mexican  War, 
he  wrote:  "Captain  R.  E.  Lee  is  the  Virginian 
who  deserves  the  credit  of  that  brilliant  cam- 
paign." In  1857  General  Scott,  in  writing  to 
the  Secretary  of  War  to  ask  a  second  lieuten- 


ioo  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

ancy  for  young  W.  H.  Fitzhugh  Lee,  then  a  stu- 
dent at  Harvard,  said:  "I  make  this  application 
mainly  on  the  extraordinary  merits  of  the  father, 
the  very  best  soldier  I  ever  saw  in  the  field/' 
To  General  Preston,  General  Scott  said  on  one 
occasion,  long  before  the  Civil  War  : 

I  tell  you  that  if  I  were  on  my  deathbed  to-morrow, 
and  the  President  of  the  United  States  should  tell  me 
that  a  great  battle  was  to  be  fought  for  the  liberty  or 
slavery  of  the  country,  and  he  asked  my  judgment  as 
to  the  ability  of  a  commander,  I  would  say  with  my 
dying  breath,  "Let  it  be  Robert  E.  Lee." 

To  a  New  York  banker  General  Scott  said  be- 
fore the  war: 

Col.  Robert  E.  Lee  is  not  only  the  greatest  soldier 
of  America,  but  the  greatest  now  living  in  the  world. 
.  .  .  And  if  he  ever  gets  the  opportunity  he  will  prove 
himself  the  greatest  captain  of  history. 

The  position  that  General  Scott  deemed  him 
worthy  of — Commander  of  the  United  States 
Army — was  offered  him  by  President  Lincoln  in 
the  spring  of  1861,  and  declined.  General  Long 
quotes  from  a  letter  this  account  of  the  offer 
made  through  Mr.  Francis  Preston  Blair: 

Mr.  Blair :  "I  come  to  you  on  the  part  of  President 
Lincoln  to  ask  whether  any  inducement  that  he  can 
offer  will  prevail  on  you  to  take  command  of  the  Union 
Army." 


The  Sonth's  Ideal  Hero.  101 

Colonel  Lee :  "If  I  owned  the  four  millions  of  slaves, 
I  would  cheerfully  sacrifice  them  to  the  preservation  of 
the  Union,  but  to  lift  my  hand  against  my  own  state 
and  people  is  impossible." 

The  best  confirmation  of  the  truth  of  this  re- 
port of  the  offer  is  General  Lee's  letter  to  Hon. 
Reverdy  Johnson,  February  25,  1868: 

After  listening  to  his  remarks,  I  declined  the  offer 
he  made  me  of  the  command  of  the  army  that  was  to  be 
brought  into  the  field,  stating  as  candidly  and  conscien- 
tiously as  I  could  that,  though  opposed  to  secession  and 
deprecating  war,  I  could  take  no  part  in  the  invasion 
of  the  Southern  states. 

It  is  needless  now  to  say  that  the  campaigns 
in  Virginia  fulfilled  all  General  Scott's  predic- 
tions. The  following  estimate  of  the  command- 
er in  chief  of  the  armies  of  Great  Britain,  Gen- 
eral Sir  Garnet  Wolseley,  will  more  and  more 
come  to  be  recognized  everywhere  as  not  over- 
drawn : 

I  have  met  many  of  the  great  men  of  my  time,  but 
Lee  alone  impressed  me  with  the  feeling  that  I  was  in 
the  presence  of  a  man  who  was  cast  in  a  grander  mold 
and  made  of  different  and  finer  metal  than  all  other 
men.  He  is  stamped  upon  my  memory  as  being  apart 
and  superior  to  all  others  in  every  way,  a  man  with 
whom  none  I  ever  knew  and  few  of  whom  I  have  read 
are  worthy  to  be  classed.  When  all  the  angry  feelings 


IO2  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

aroused  by  secession  are  buried  with  those  that  existed 
when  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  written ; 
when  Americans  can  review  the  history  of  this  last 
great  war  with  calm  impartiality,  I  believe  all  will  ad- 
mit that  General  Lee  towered  far  above  all  men  on 
either  side  in  that  struggle.  I  believe  he  will  be  re- 
garded not  only  as  the  most  prominent  figure  of  the 
Confederacy,  but  as  the  greatest  American  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  whose  •statue  is  well  worthy  to  stand  on 
an  equal  pedestal  with  that  of  Washington,  and  whose 
memory  is  equally  worthy  to  be  enshrined  in  the  hearts 
of  all  his  countrymen. 

The  spirit  of  the  chivalrous  soldier  and  hu- 
mane man  characterized  all  his  conduct  in  war, 
and  he  was  wholly  free  from  malice  or  vindic- 
tiveness.  "We  make  war  only  upon  armed  men," 
he  said  in  his  general  orders  to  his  army  on  first 
invading  Pennsylvania ;  he  "earnestly  exhorted 
the  troops  to  abstain  with  most  scrupulous  care 
from  unnecessary  or  wanton  injury  of  private 
property,"  and  "enjoined  upon  all  officers  to  ar- 
rest and  bring  to  summary  punishment  all  who 
should  in  any  way  offend  against  the  orders  on 
the  subject."  On  one  occasion  he  was  seen  to 
dismount  from  his  horse  and  put  up  a  farmer's 
fence,  to  set  a  good  example  to  his  soldiers. 
Soon  after  the  war,  when  he  had  been  indicted 
for  treason  by  a  Federal  grand  jury,  a  party  of 
gentlemen  were  spending  an  evening  at  his  house 


The  South' s  Ideal  Hero.  103 

in  Richmond,  and  Rev.  Dr.  -  -  led  in  the  ex- 
pression of  bitterness  felt  by  the  South  at  this 
indictment.  General  Lee  followed  him  to  the 
door  when  he  left,  and  said : 

Doctor,  there  is  a  good  old  book,  which  I  read  and 
you  preach  from,  which  says,  "Love  your  enemies,  bless 
them  that  curse  you,  do  good  to  them  that  hate  you, 
and  pray  for  them  which  despitefully  use  you  and  per- 
secute you."  Do  you  think  your  remarks  this  evening 
were  quite  in  the  spirit  of  that  teaching? 

Then  General  Lee  added : 

I  have  fought  against  the  people  of  the  North  be- 
cause I  believed  they  were  seeking  to  wrest  from  the 
South  her  dearest  rights.  But  I  have  never  cherished 
toward  them  bitter  or  vindictive  feeling,  and  have  never 
seen  the  day  when  I  did  not  pray  for  them. 

One  day  in  the  autumn  of  1869  Dr.  Jones 
found  General  Lee  standing  at  his  gate,  from 
which  a  humbly  clad  man  was  moving  away. 
"That  is  one  of  our  soldiers  who  is  in  necessitous 
circumstances,"  remarked  the  General.  On  be- 
ing asked  to  what  command  he  belonged,  Gen- 
eral Lee  replied:  "He  fought  on  the  other  side, 
but  we  must  not  remember  that  against  him 
now."  This  poor  Union  soldier  said  to  Dr. 
Jones  afterwards:  "He  is  the  noblest  man  that 
ever  lived.  He  not  only  had  a  kind  word  for  me, 


IO4  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

but  he  gave  me  some  money  to  help  me  on  my 
way." 

To  control  one's  self  is  greater  than  to  con- 
quer enemies,  and  "self-restraint  is  the  highest 
form  of  self-assertion."  "I  never  in  my  life  saw 
in  him  the  slightest  tendency  to  self-seeking," 
said  Jefferson  Davis.  After  the  Mexican  War, 
Robert  E.  Lee  said:  "Such  [favors]  as  he  [the 
President]  can  conscientiously  bestow  I  shall 
gratefully  receive,  and  have  no  doubts  that  these 
will  exceed  my  deserts."  Concerning  the  promo- 
tion of  Joseph  E.  Johnston  to  be  brigadier  gen- 
eral in  1860,  Lee,  who  had  previously  ranked 
Johnston,  said: 

I  rejoice  in  the  good  fortune  of  my  old  friend  Joe 
Johnston,  for  while  I  should  not  like,  of  course,  that 
this  should  be  taken  as  a  precedent  in  the  service,  yet, 
so  far  as  he  is  concerned,  he  is  in  every  way  worthy  of 
the  promotion,  and  I  am  glad  that  he  received  it. 

When  General  Joseph  E.  Johnston  was  claim- 
ing that  he  should  rank  first  among  the  five  full 
generals  in  1862,  General  Lee  used  to  say:  "Oh, 
I  care  nothing  about  rank.  I  am  willing  to  serve 
anywhere  that  I  can  be  most  useful."  He  had 
proved  that  by  his  acceptance  of  an  inferior 
command  in  West  Virginia  in  the  summer  of 
1861.  When  that  campaign  proved  unsuccess- 
ful, he  showed  President  Davis  that  but  for  the 


The  South's  Ideal  Hero.  105 

failure  of  subordinates  victory  would  have  been 
won;  but  he  begged  the  President  not  to  speak 
of  it,  saying:  "I  would  rather  rest  under  unjust 
censure  myself  than  injure  those  who  are  doing 
what  they  can  for  the  cause."  The  same  spirit 
characterized  him  in  the  fall  of  1861  when  sent 
to  look  after  the  coast  defenses  of  Georgia  and 
South  Carolina. 

General  Lee  scrupulously  refrained  from  using 
his  position  to  advance  the  fortunes  of  his  kin- 
dred. His  son,  R.  E.  Lee,  Jr.,  though  he  had 
been  captain  of  a  company  of  students  at  the 
University  of  Virginia,  enlisted  as  a  private  in 
the  artillery  in  1862,  and  remained  so  until  ap- 
pointed to  a  lieutenancy  on  the  staff  of  his  broth- 
er, W.  H.  Fitzhugh  Lee,  when  the  latter  was 
promoted  to  be  brigadier  general.  Late  in  the 
war  President  Davis  wished  to  appoint  another 
son,  G.  W.  Custis  Lee,  to  the  command  of  the 
army  in  southwest  Virginia,  making  him  major 
general,  or  lieutenant  general,  or  even  full  gen- 
eral, that  he  might  rank  any  other  officer  eligible 
to  that  position.  All  that  was  necessary  was 
that  General  Lee  should  order  his  son  to  that 
command ;  but  this  he  declined  to  do.  "I  cannot 
pass  my  tried  officers,"  he  said,  "and  take  for 
that  important  position  a  comparatively  new 
man,  especially  when  that  man  is  my  own  son." 


io6  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

Consideration  for,  and  sympathy  with,  others 
was  as  characteristic  of  General  Lee  as  was  his 
lack  of  self-seeking.  This  was  evident  already 
in  the  boy's  conduct  toward  his  invalid  mother. 
Dr.  J.  William  Jones  says  of  him  at  this  period: 

So  Robert  was  the  housekeeper,  carried  the  keys, 
attended  to  the  marketing,  managed  all  of  the  outdoor 
business,  and  took  care  of  his  mother's  horses.  At  the 
hour  when  the  other  schoolboys  went  to  play,  he  hur- 
ried home  to  order  his  mother's  drive,  and  would  then 
be  seen  carrying  her  in  his  arms  to  the  carriage  and 
arranging  her  cushions  with  the  gentleness  of  an  ex- 
perienced nurse. 

When  he  went  to  West  Point,  his  mother  was 
heard  to  say:  "How  can  I  live  without  Robert? 
He  is  both  son  and  daughter  to  me."  On  one 
vacation  from  West  Point,  finding  his  mother's 
old  coachman  "Xat"  threatened  with  consump- 
tion, he  took  him  to  the  milder  climate  of  Geor- 
gia and  secured  for  him  the  best  medical  advice 
and  attention.  The  following  incident  is  told  by 
a  Federal  soldier  whose  leg  was  shattered  on  the 
last  day  of  the  battle  at  Gettysburg.  Seeing 
General  Lee  pass  near,  the  wounded  man  defi- 
antly shouted,  "Hurrah  for  the  Union !"  Gen- 
eral Lee  dismounted  and  came  toward  him.  "I 
confess,"  said  the  Federal  soldier,  "at  first  I 
thought  he  meant  to  kill  me."  But  General  Lee 


The  South's  Ideal  Hero.  107 

took  his  hand,  looked  kindly  into  his  eyes,  and 
said:  "My  son,  I  hope  you  will  soon  be  well." 
"If  I  live  a  thousand  years,"  added  the  soldier, 
"I  shall  never  forget  the  expression  on  General 
Lee's  face.  ...  I  cried  myself  to  sleep  on 
the  bloody  ground." 

The  love  and  devotion  of  his  soldiers  for  Gen- 
eral Lee  was  beautiful ;  and  no  wonder.  "It  was 
his  constant  habit,"  said  Senator  Withers,  "to 
turn  over  to  the  sick  and  wounded  soldiers  in  the 
hospital  such  delicate  viands  as  the  partiality  of 
friends  furnished  for  his  personal  consumption." 
His  wife,  who  was  an  invalid  confined  to  a  roll- 
ing-chair, spent  her  time  knitting  socks  for  the 
soldiers,  inducing  others  around  her  to  do  the 
same;  and  his  letters  to  her  are  full  of  evidence 
that  he  found  time  amid  all  his  duties  and  cares 
to  distribute  them  to  the  soldiers.  In  June,  1864, 
a  lady  sent  him  a  fine  peach — the  first  he  had 
seen  for  two  years — and  he  sent  it  to  an  invalid 
lady  in  whose  yard  his  tents  were  pitched.  On 
the  final  retreat  from  Petersburg  to  Appomattox, 
he  turned  aside  for  a  few  minutes  to  call  upon 
the  widow  of  one  of  his  officers  who  had  fallen 
in  battle.  Intimately  connected  with  this  consid- 
eration of  others  was  his  invariable  courtesy.  At 
Lexington  after  the  war,  "even  amid  his  pressing 
duties  at  the  college  he  found  time  to  be  the  most 


io8  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

thoroughly  polite  gentleman  in  the  community. 
He  seemed 'to  think  himself  called  on  to  visit  all 
strangers  who  came  to  Lexington,  and  frequent- 
ly surprised  and  delighted  them  by  an  unex- 
pected courtesy." 

Dr.  Joynes,  who  was  a  member  of  General 
Lee's  faculty,  says  r1 

General  Lee's  treatment  of  his  faculty  was  not  only 
courteous,  but  kind  and  affectionate.  My  wife  reminds 
me  that  once,  when  I  was  detained  at  home  by  sickness, 
General  Lee  came  every  day,  through  a  deep  Lexing- 
ton snow,  and  climbed  the  high  stairs  to  inquire  about 
me  and  comfort  her. 

With  all  his  great  qualities2  General  Lee  was 
a  sincere  and  humble  Christian.  Nearly  every 
letter  from  the  front  in  war,  as  well  as  those  in 
times  of  peace,  contains  an  expression  of  his 
trust  in  God  and  his  submission  to  the  heavenly 
will.  He  fostered  the  religious  spirit  among  the 
soldiers  in  his  army ;  and  his  anxiety  for  the  spir- 
itual welfare  of  the  students  under  his  charge  at 
Washington  College  was  expressed  in  his  remark 
to  a  clergyman.  "O,  Doctor,  if  I  could  only  know 

'Footnote  to  address  made  at  the  Lee  Centennial 
Celebration  held  under  the  auspices  of  the  University 
of  South  Carolina,  January  19,  1907. 

2For  proof  that  General  Lee  was  above  money  and 
beyond  price,  see  Chapter  XIV.,  pp.  349-351. 


The  South' s  Ideal  Hero.  109 

that  all  of  the  young  men  in  the  college  were 
good  Christians,  I  should  have  nothing  more  to 
desire."  His  very  last  act,  at  the  meeting  of  the 
vestry  of  his  church  the  evening  he  was  stricken 
down,  was  to  subscribe  the  amount  necessary  to 
cover  the  deficit  in  his  pastor's  salary. 

Is  it  not  absolutely  clear  from  the  foregoing 
incidents  and  illustrations  not  only  that  General 
Lee  was  in  war  "a  phenomenon,"  as  Stonewall 
Jackson  said — "the  only  man  I  would  be  willing 
to  follow  blindfolded" — but  also  the  purest  and 
best  of  men?  He  was  our  first  gentleman,  a 
Christian  hero,  without  self-seeking,  without  av- 
arice, without  malice  or  vindictiveness,  without 
vice,  kind  and  considerate,  tender  and  forgiving, 
a  knightly  man  without  fear  and  without  re- 
proach. As  Major  Daniel  said  in  his  great  me- 
morial address,  "To  him  who  thus  stood  by  us 
we  owe  a  debt  immeasurable,  and  as  long  as  our 
race  is  upon  earth,  let  our  children  and  our  chil- 
dren's children  hold  that  debt  sacred."  If  we 
teach  them  to  do  that,  we  are  providing  them 
with  the  greatest  safeguard  in  the  struggles  and 
temptations  of  life.  To  know  and  revere  and 
look  up  to  a  character  like  General  Lee's  is  the 
best  thing  that  can  be  taught  the  youth  of  our 
land.  "On  God  and  godlike  men  we  build  our 
trust." 


no  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

There  are  a  few  scenes  in  the  life  of  General 
Lee  I  should  like  especially  to  have  witnessed ; 
for  example,  that  described  by  Major  John  W. 
Daniel  just  after  Gettysburg.  General  Lee  had 
said,  on  the  failure  of  Pickett's  glorious  charge, 
"It  was  all  my  fault" ;  but  his  men  knew  better. 

We  saw  him  standing  by  the  roadside  with  his  bridle- 
rein  over  his  arm,  on  the  second  day  afterwards,  as  the . 
army  was  withdrawing.  Pickett's  division  filed  past 
him;  every  general  of  brigade  had  fallen,  and  every 
field  officer  of  its  regiments;  a  few  tattered  battle  flags 
and  a  few  hundreds  of  men  were  all  that  was  left  of 
the  magnificent  body,  five  thousand  strong,  who  had 
made  the  famous  charge.  He  stood  with  uncovered 
head,  as  if  he  reviewed  a  conquering  host,  and  with  the 
conqueror's  look  upon  him.  With  proud  step  the  men 
marched  by,  and  as  they  raised  their  hats  and  cheered 
him  there  was  the  tenderness  of  devoted  love,  mingled 
with  the  fire  of  battle  in  their  eyes. 

Again  I  should  like  to  have  seen  Gregg's 
Texas  brigade  moving  forward  to  the  charge  to 
restore  the  broken  lines,  cheering  the  General  as 
they  passed  him,  and  Lee  so  moved  by  their 
greeting  and  their  gallant  bearing  that  he  spurred 
his  horse  through  an  opening  in  the  trenches  and 
followed,  while  the  whole  line  shouted  as  it 
rushed  forward,  "Go  back,  General  Lee,  go 
back!"  Again  I  should  like  to  have  been  a  wit- 
ness at  Spottsylvania  six  days  later — May  12 — 


The  South' s  Ideal  Hero.  in 

when  the  Federals  were  pouring  through  the 
broken  lines  threatening  disaster,  and  General 
Lee  had  ridden  forward  to  the  head  of  Gordon's 
column.  General  Gordon,  perceiving  his  inten- 
tion to  lead  the  charge,  spurred  to  his  side  and 
seizing  his  reins  exclaimed :  "General  Lee,  this  is 
no  place  for  you  !  Do  go  to  the  rear.  These  men 
behind  you  are  Georgians,  Virginians,  and  Car- 
olinians. They  have  never  failed  you  on  any 
field.  They  will  not  fail  you  here.  Will  you, 
boys?"  "No,  no,  we  will  not  fail  him."  Then 
turning  his  horse  and  urging  him  back,  they 
shouted,  "General  Lee  to  the  rear !  General  Lee 
to  the  rear !"  Then  General  Gordon  led  them  on 
with  the  ringing  words,  "Forward,  charge!  and 
remember  your  promise  to  General  Lee."3 

Those  were  scenes  of  his  triumph,  but  he  was 
greater  still  in  the  hour  of  humiliation.  When 
he  had  arranged  terms  with  General  Grant  and 
surrendered  his  army  and  was  returning  to  his 
quarters,  this  is  what  happened : 

sThe  intensity  of  the  musketry  fire  in  this  battle  of 
May  12,  it  may  be  remarked,  was  perhaps  never  ex- 
ceeded in  warfare.  A  hickory  tree,  eighteen  inches  in 
diameter,  between  the  opposing  lines,  was  so  chipped 
away  by  the  hail  of  bullets  that  the  first  gust  of  wind 
blew  it  down.  It  is  now  preserved  as  a  memento  at 
Washington. 


112  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

As  he  rode  slowly  along  the  lines,  hundreds  of  his 
devoted  veterans  pressed  around  the  noble  chief,  trying 
to  take  his  hand,  touch  his  person,  or  even  lay  a  hand 
upon  his  horse,  thus  exhibiting  for  him  their  great  af- 
fection. The  General  then,  with  head  bare  and  tears 
flowing  freely  down  his  manly  cheeks,  bade  adieu  to 
the  army.  "Men,  we  have  fought  through  the  war  to- 
gether. I  have  done  my  best  for  you ;  my  heart  is  too 
full  to  say  more." 

It  was  a  farewell  scene  worthy  of  the  peerless 
General  and  his  heroic  army.  He  had  hoped  to 
return  home  unobserved ;  but  as  he  rode  through 
the  streets  of  Richmond,  a  body  of  Federal  sol- 
diers recognized  him,  lifted  their  hats  and 
cheered.  His  own  people,  too,  did  him  homage. 
"Men,  women,  and  children  crowded  around  him, 
cheering  and  waving  hats  and  handkerchiefs.  It 
was  more  like  a  welcome  to  a  conqueror  than  to 
a  defeated  prisoner  on  parole." 

Such  scenes  show  the  marvelous  affection  and 
admiration  which  soldiers  and  citizens  had  for 
the  great  leader  of  armies,  but  I  have  heard  of 
another  which  touches  my  heart  not  less.  He 
was  presiding  in  faculty  meeting  at  college  one 
day  after  his  health  had  become  frail,  and  in  the 
midst  of  the  discussion  dropped  off  to  sleep ;  in- 
stantly every  voice  was  hushed  in  reverential 
silence  for  fear  of  awaking  him. 


MAl.'KIC'K    THOMl'SON. 


VII. 
MAURICE  THOMPSON. 

IN  the  production  of  men  of  great  talent  there 
are  often  extraordinary  years  and  especially  fa- 
vored localities.  Maurice  Thompson  is  classed 
with  that  coterie  of  literary  people  from  the 
neighborhood  of  Brookville,  Indiana,  to  which 
belonged  Lew  Wallace,  John  Hay,  and  others; 
and  it  is  interesting  to  know  that  General  Wal- 
lace, who  was  afterwards  his  fellow-townsman, 
spent  part  of  his  childhood  with  Maurice  Thomp- 
son's parents. 

Maurice  Thompson  was  born  at  Fairfield, 
Indiana,  September  9,  1844.  His  father  and 
grandfather  were  Primitive  Baptist  preachers ; 
both  wrote  doctrinal  books,  and  both  were  ef- 
fective public  speakers.  The  great-great-grand- 
father was  a  companion  of  Daniel  Boone,  and 
the  forefathers  had  come  "by  a  straggling  route 
from  the  highlands  of  Scotland  and  from  Coun- 
ty Kerry,  Ireland,  by  way  of  Virginia,  North 
Carolina,  and  Tennessee,  into  the  'Dark  and 
Bloody  Ground.' "  Paternal  and  maternal  an- 
cestors fought  under  Lafayette  or  Marion  in 
8  (H3) 


114  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

the  Revolution.  Hence  Maurice  Thompson 
came  naturally  by  his  patriotic  Americanism  as 
well  as  his  love  of  nature  and  of  hunting  and 
fishing.  His  mother,  who  came  of  Dutch  stock, 
was  "well  educated,  and  a  lover  of  the  best 
books."  "From  childhood  to  manhood,"  he  said, 
"she  was  my  boon  companion,  my  playmate,  my 
adviser,  my  teacher,  my  loving  and  encouraging 
critic,  my  everything — my  mother!" 

After  his  birth  the  family  drifted  to  south- 
east Missouri,  back  to  Indiana,  then  to  Ken- 
tucky, and  finally,  when  Maurice  Thompson  was 
nine  or  ten,  settled  in  north  Georgia.  Here  he 
led,  as  he  says,  "a  swe«t  wild  life,  hard  enough 
in  many  respects,  almost  savage  in  some — a 
sweet  wild  life,  as  I  remember  it,  however,  de- 
voted to  books,  manual  labor,  wildwood  roam- 
ing, shooting,  and  fishing."  A  little  later  he 
began  to  make  those  trips,  by  canoe  or  on  foot, 
in  rivers,  lakes,  and  swamps,  or  over  mountains, 
along  the  Gulf  coast  and  into  Florida,  which 
still  later  covered  the  region  from  the  Great 
Lakes  to  the  Gulf.  "I  was  impelled,"  he  said, 
"to  go  into  the  wilds  of  nature,  and  went."  He 
had  little  regular  schooling,  and  never  went  to 
college,  but  from  his  mother  and  from  tutors 
he  received  instruction  in  Latin,  Greek,  French, 
German,  Hebrew,  and  mathematics.  Among 


Maurice  Thompson.  115 

the  authors  that  especially  delighted  him  in  the 
earlier  period,  he  mentions  Poe  and  Victor 
Hugo  and  Audubon,  Cicero  (S 'omnium  Scipi- 
onis  and  De  Senectute},  and  Theocritus;  and  in 
camp  during  the  Civil  War  he  was  reading  Car- 
lyle,  De  Quincey,  and  the  like.  His  companion 
in  studies  and  roaming,  as  later  in  the  war,  was 
a  younger  brother  ("Will"),  also  an  enthusiast 
over  bow  and  arrows  and  an  incipient  naturalist. 
Joining  the  Confederate  army  in  1862,  he  fought 
till  he  was  honorably  surrendered  at  Kingston, 
Georgia,  in  May,  1865. 

His  attitude  during  and  since  the  war  was  well 
expressed  in  one  of  his  poems — "An  address  by 
an  ex-Confederate  soldier  to  the  Grand  Army 
of  the  Republic": 

I  was  a  rebel,  if  you  please, 

A  reckless  fighter  to  the  last, 
Nor  do  I  fall  upon  my  knees 

And  ask  forgiveness  for  the  past. 

A  traitor?     I  a  traitor?     No! 

I  was  a  patriot  to  the  core; 
The  South  was  mine,  I  loved  her  so, 

I  gave  her  all — I  could  no  more. 

I  stemmed  the  level  flames  of  hell, 
O'er  bayonet  bars  of  death  I  broke. 

I  was  so  near  when  Cleburne  fell, 
I  heard  the  muffled  bullet  stroke. 


n6  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

I  clasp  the  hand  that  made  my  scars, 
I  cheer  the  flag  my  foemen  bore, 

I  shout  for  joy  to  see  the  stars 
All  on  our  common  shield  once  more. 

I  stand  and  say  that  you  were  right, 
I  greet  you  with  uncovered  head, 

Remembering  many  a  thundering  fight, 
Where  whistling  death  between  us  sped. 

-In  one  of  his  novels  Maurice  Thompson  de- 
scribes a  Confederate  officer  who,  having  come 
to  the  conviction  that  the  national  cause  was 
that  of  human  progress,  did  not  desert,  but  rode 
out  boldly  before  the  host,  so  that  he  might  be 
captured  could  he  be  overtaken,  and  away  to 
the  enemy.  Maurice  Thompson's  heart  was  with 
the  South,  and  he  "stayed  with  her  till  the  fight 
closed,''  but  his  judgment  went  the  other  way. 
He  was  a  brave  and  daring  soldier  always — for 
proof  see  the  incident  quoted  by  Raskervill 
("Maurice  Thompson,"  p.  103) — and  after  the 
war  he  never  cringed  nor  apologized;  but  time 
only  strengthened  the  conviction  to  which  he 
had  come  while  still  fighting,  that  we  were  es- 
saying the  impossible  in  behalf  of  human  slav- 
ery that  was  not  worth  it.  So  he  could  write 
from  his  heart : 

I  am  a  Southerner. 
I  love  the  South;  I  dared  for  her 


Maurice  Thompson.  117 

To  fight  from  Lookout  to  the  sea, 
With  her  proud  banner  over  me : 
But  from  my  lips  thanksgiving  broke, 
As  God  in  battle  thunder  spoke, 
And  that  Black  Idol,  breeding  drouth 

And  dearth  of  human  sympathy 
.Throughout  the  sweet  and  sensuous  South, 

Was,  with  its  chains  and  human  yoke, 
Blown  hellward  from  the  cannon's  mouth, 

While  freedom  cheered  behind  the  smoke! 

After~the  war  he  worked  in  the  field,  studying 
the  while  engineering  and  some  Greek — buying 
some  of  his  books  with  squirrels  sold  at  ten 
cents — then  devoted  himself  to  the  law.  In 
1868  reconstruction  troubles  in  Georgia  caused 
him  to  turn  his  face  northward,  and  he  drifted 
to  Crawfordsville,  Indiana.  His  brother  was 
with  him,  and  they  found  employment  as  civil 
engineers  on  a  line  of  railway  then  building 
through  the  county.  He  soon  married  a  Miss 
Lee,  of  Crawfordsville,  the  courtship  beginning 
in  this  wise.  He  called  on  business  at  the  house 
of  Mr.  John  Lee,  and  Miss  Lee  answered  the 
doorbell.  His  choice  was  made  instantly,  and 
the  marriage  which  followed  proved  the  happiest 
of  the  happy.  Mrs.  Thompson  became  his  in- 
separable companion,  and  always  went  with  him 
on  his  journeys,  which  now  became  less  and  less 
frequent,  except  the  annual  winter  hegira  to  the 


n8  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

South  for  the  sake  of  his  lungs.  She,  a  son, 
and  two  daughters  survive  him.  His  brother, 
inseparable  still  in  all  things,  married  a  sister 
of  Miss  Lee,  drifted  also  into  letters  and  law, 
and  the  two  practiced  together  at  the  bar  till 
ihe  younger  removed  to  the  far  West.  The  law 
did  not  hold  Maurice  Thompson's  undivided 
fealty.  In  boyhood  he  was  an  amateur  scientist, 
and  after  a  while  he  became  State  Geologist  of 
Indiana.  He  was  for  a  time,  too,  a  member  of 
the  legislature  and  figured  in  politics,  being  in 
1888  a  delegate  to  the  National  Democratic 
Convention.  As  a  gold  Democrat  he  forsook  his 
party  in  1896. 

But  in  all  that — engineering,  law,  science,  pol- 
itics— he  did  not  find  the  career  for  which  he 
was  intended.  Already  as  a  youth  he  had  felt 
all  the  "myriad  scraps  of  knowledge,  snatched 
here  from  books  and  there  from  nature,  fusing 
in  the  heat  of  his  imagination  and  running  to- 
gether in  a  strong  current  toward  the  outlet  of 
literary  expression."  He  had  been  printing  from 
time  to  time  sketches  and  stories  and  poems,  and 
it  may  have  been  an  incident  from  his  own  ex- 
perience which  he  tells  in  "A  Banker  of  Bank- 
ersville."  A  farmer  says  to  his  lawyer,  whom  he 
greatly  admires :  "Colonel,  you're  a  mighty  smart 
man.  You  could  go  to  Congress  if  you'd  stop 


Maurice  Thompson.  119 

writin'  them  durn  little  pomes!"  His  first  little 
book,  "Hoosier  Mosaics"  (1875),  while  only  a 
promise  of  the  charming  essays  and  nature 
studies  that  were  to  come  in  later  years,  made 
him  at  least  a  local  reputation,  and  he  began  to 
be  pointed  out  by  his  fellow-townsmen.  His 
next  book,  "Witchery  of  Archery,"  was  widely 
read  and  won  him  considerable  literary  fame; 
for  thirty  years  ago  there  was  a  furore  for  arch- 
ery, for  which  he  and  his  brother  were  chiefly 
responsible.  Not  only  did  he  write  magazine 
articles  and  poems  about  the  delights  of  this 
sport,  but  the  two  brothers  took  prizes  at  the 
tournaments,  and  their  sport  became  the  "fad" 
of  the  time.  About  1884  he  abandoned  law  for 
literature  and  science,  and  from  1889  letters 
claimed  all  his  fealty.  In  that  year  he  became, 
as  he  continued  till  his  death,  literary  editor  of 
The  Independent.  These  are  the  main  facts  in 
his  career.  One  may  read  them  in  several  places, 
but  they  are  best  given,  along  with  delightful 
critical  estimates,  in  Baskervill's  sketch  "Mau- 
rice Thompson"  in  his  "Southern  Writers."  If 
by  this  reference  I  invite  comparison  with  Bas- 
kervill's paper,  I  shall  feel  compensated  for  the 
inevitable  verdict  should  I  direct  or  redirect  any 
one  to  that  charming  study. 

It  had  been  several  years  since  I   had  read 


I2O  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

much  from  Maurice  Thompson,  and  I  was  a 
little  fearsome  when  I  took  him  up  again. 
Would  I  find  that  my  taste  had  changed?  I 
read  first  his  "Alice  of  Old  Vincennes,"  and  was 
glad  I  could  like  his  popular  novel.  It  is  a  bet- 
ter book  than  his  other  novels.  Still  I  come 
back  to  my  old  impression :  Maurice  Thompson 
is  at  his  best,  in  prose,  in  his  nature  sketches. 
"This  is  Mr.  Thompson's  chosen  field,"  said  a 
writer  shortly  before  his  death,  "and  there  is 
now  no  living  nature-writer  who  has  such  grace 
and  charm  as  he."  That  is  what  he  really  knew 
best — the  hills  and  valleys,  lakes  and  streams, 
creeks  and  bayous  of  Indiana  and  Georgia  and 
Florida,  with  the  flying,  swimming,  creeping, 
walking  things  that  frequent  those  regions. 
He  writes  best  seemingly  out-of-doors  about  out- 
of-doors  things,  and  he  loves  to  test  his  favorite 
authors  in  an  out-of-doors  atmosphere.  Thus 
he  keeps  his  taste  wholesome  and  fresh  and 
pure,  or  rather  he  does  this  with  his  books  be- 
cause his  taste  is  simple  and  sound.  "I  some- 
times read  French  novels  out-of-doors,"  says  he, 
"merely  for  the  antiseptic  effect  that  the  sun 
and  air  have  on  the  offensive  passages;  but  at 
best  I  often  find  myself  glad  that  American  birds 
and  flowers  do  not  understand  French." 

One  thing  I  especially  like  in  Maurice  Thomp- 


Maurice  Thompson.  121 

son  is  the  way  in  which  he  mixes  up  authors 
with  things  in  his  out-of-doors  sketches.  In 
the  "Tangle-Leaf  Papers,"  for  instance,  we  are 
reading  about  birds  or  fishes,  or  following  Mau- 
rice Thompson  on  his  wheel,  and  have  dropped 
upon  us  unawares  Theocritus  or  Virgil,  Chau- 
cer or  Izaak  Walton,  Emerson  or  Walt  Whit- 
man— a  sentence  quoted  from  one  or  the  other, 
with  a  telling  bit  of  criticism,  which  is  sure  to 
send  the  reader  to  those  authors.  It  is  not  just 
a  medley  that  Maurice  Thompson  is  giving  us; 
not  always  strictly  consequent,  it  is  true,  but  dis- 
cursive rather  than  rambling,  like  good  talk,  at 
once  delightful  and  stimulating.  It  is  like  the 
out-of-doors,  where  we  cannot  always  think  log- 
ically and  in  order  long  enough  to  solve  a  prop- 
osition or  a  problem.  But  such  papers  are  easy 
to  read  and  interesting,  and  in  reading  them 
one's  mind  gets  wholesome  distraction  and  tonic, 
as  the  body  becomes  hungry  from  being  in  the 
fresh  air. 

"The  Threshold  of  the  Gods"  I  think  Maurice 
Thompson  would  have  considered  his  best  piece 
of  prose — if  indeed  it  be  not  a  poem,  lacking 
merely  verse  form.  Here  is  his  very  best  style. 
The  first  time  I  read  it  was  in  1886,  when  we 
were  getting  ready  for  his  coming  to  Nashville 
to  lecture,  and  I  liked  it  so  much  that  I  asked 


122  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

our  new  Professor  of  Elocution  to  read  it  to  the 
Literary  Club.  But  he  did  not  have  time  to 
prepare  the  piece,  and  evidently  did  not  catch 
its  spirit.  He  struck  a  false  note,  the  club  felt 
the  discord,  and  the  result  was  confusion. 
Members  sneered  at  me,  and  the  meeting-  was 
not  a  success.  It  all  came  back  to  me  as  I  read 
it  one  beautiful  Sabbath  afternoon  fifteen  years 
later;  but  I  do  not  understand  how  the  spirit  of 
the  piece  could  have  been  so  completely  missed. 
I  handed  the  same  piece,  two  years  later,  to 
a  young  friend  on  the  top  of  Chilhowee  Moun- 
tain. He  read  it  with  the  Smoky  Mountains  in 
full  view  far  away  and  the  tinkle  of  cowbells 
coming  up  from  the  valley  below,  and  as  he 
returned  it  said  with  beaming  eyes,  "Maurice 
Thompson  is  a  poet!"  Mrs.  Thompson  once 
told  me  of  the  fate  of  the  piece  with  the  maga- 
zine editors.  Mr.  Thompson  sent  it  to  several. 
Mr.  Alden  said,  "It  is  beautiful,  but  out  of  reach 
of  my  readers !"  In  similar  language  they  all 
rejected  it  in  turn. 

Through  Maurice  Thompson's  nature  studies 
I  came  to  know  and  admire  and  love  him.  I 
was  something  of  a  hero-worshiper,  and  was 
nattered  by  the  friendship  of  the  man  of  letters ; 
and  the  combination  of  fondness  for  his  writings 
and  for  him  did  much  for  me  in  those  earlv  davs. 


Maurice  Thompson.  123 

He  helped  me  to  a  keener  sense  of  the  beauties 
of  nature,  confirmed  in  me  a  natural  love  of 
deep  woods  and  running  water  and  wide  stretch- 
es of  country.  Perhaps  he  had  something  to  do 
with  the  development  of  my  love  of  mountain 
tramping,  with  all  the  delights  that  go  there- 
with— drinking  cool  water  from  ever-flowing 
springs,  eating  wild  berries,  the  luxury  of 
abounding  health  and  of  being  always  hungry. 
I  recall  one  spring  morning  at  Vanderbilt  in  the 
latter  eighties  when  I  happened  to  be  awake  at 
five  A.M. — for  one  of  the  children  was  ill — and 
became  an  enforced  listener  at  a  concert  of  birds 
held  in  the  trees  about  the  house.  There  was  a 
host  of  birds  on  that  beautiful  campus — for 
Bishop  McTyeire  was  as  hospitable  to  birds  as 
he  was  fond  of  trees — but  I  was  never  in  the 
habit  of  getting  awake  for  the  early  bird-con- 
certs. That  morning  all  the  spring  air  was 
vocal,  and  even  the  woodpecker  that  could  not 
sing  seemed  to  catch  the  spirit  of  the  occasion 
and  mounting  to  the  tin-covered  turret  pecked 
away,  beating  the  drum,  as  it  were,  as  an  ac- 
companiment. As  I  lay  there  and  listened,  I 
felt  grateful  to  Maurice  Thompson  for  opening 
my  ears  to  such  delights  as  these. 

The  first    thing    I    remember    reading    from 
Maurice    Thompson    was    "Genesis    of     Bird- 


124  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

Song,"  in  the  Atlantic;  and  the  reading  of  that 
article  was  perhaps  the  cause  of  my  suggesting 
him  as  the  first  lecturer  in  the  series  given  for 
several  successive  years  at  Vanderbilt.  The  idea 
of  the  promoters  of  that  series  was  to  bring 
before  the  students  and  the  Nashville  public 
writers  of  repute.  Somebody  asked,  when  the 
choice  of  Maurice  Thompson  as  first  lecturer 
had  been  announced,  "Is  he  a  good  lecturer?" 
"I  don't  know,  and  I  don't  care !"  was  my  re- 
ply. "He  is  a  good  writer,  and  I  want  our  stu- 
dents to  see  in  the  flesh  a  man  that  is  making 
literature,  and  thus  get  to  reading  his  books,  and 
then  other  people's  books,  simply  for  literature's 
sake."  He  proved  to  be  a  good  lecturer — sim- 
ple, natural,  totally  unaffected,  interesting;  his 
voice  not  powerful,  rather  gentle  and  soft,  but 
clear  and  carrying  far.  The  people  flocked  to 
hear  him,  and  speaker  and  people  were  mutually 
pleased.  I  remember  his  saying  that  the  great 
audience  at  Watkins  Institute  one  evening  was 
the  handsomest  he  had  ever  faced.  And  since 
that  time  Southern  authors  have  been  much 
read  at  Vanderbilt.  He  simply  lectured,  but  the 
general  sentiment  was,  what  editor  Peck  ex- 
pressed, "Maurice  Thompson  is  a  poet !"  And 
this  brings  us  naturally  to  his  poems. 

Above  all   that   Maurice  Thompson  wrote,   I 


Maurice  Thompson.  125 

find  that  his  poems  keep  their  old  charm  for  me. 
That  would  have  pleased  him,  I  am  sure;  for 
doubtless  he  thought  his  poems  his  best  work, 
and  hoped  and  dreamed  they  would  last.  Why 
should  he  not  have  been  pleased?  Who  would 
not  be  a  poet  above  all  things?  It  is  especially 
the  earlier  and  shorter  poems  that  I  like  best. 
The  mocking-bird  poems  are  his  most  ambitious 
efforts;  they  are  fresh  and  strong,  full  of  the 
note  of  liberty  everywhere,  genuinely  American, 
with  something,  too,  of  the  American  spirit  that 
challenges  the  world.  But  they  are  not  his  best 
work,  and  there  is  not  as  much  song  in  them  as 
in  some  of  the  rest.  It  is  of  the  earlier  simpler 
poems  that  Mr.  Howells  said,  "The  odor  of  the 
woods,  pure  and  keen  and  clean,  seems  to  strike 
up  from  this  verse  as  directly  as  from  the  mold 
in  the  heart  of  the  primeval  forest."  I  was  not 
surprised  to  find  that  the  mocking-bird  poems 
impressed  Baskervill  much  as  they  do  me;  but 
how  delicately  he  makes  his  criticism !  "But  to 
some  extent  one  feels,"  says  he,  "that  the  songs 
of  the  mocking-bird  are  'translated  carefully.' 
and  that  it  is  impossible  to  reproduce  the  'gold- 
en note  by  golden  word,'  even  though 

Heard  in  the  dewy  dawn-lit  ways 

Of  Freedom's  solitudes 
Down  by  the  sea  in  the  springtime  woods." 


126  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

On  a  fresh  August  morning,  after  nature 
had  had  her  "bath  of  storm,"  I  took  up  the 
"Poems"  to  re-read  my  favorites,  turning  first 
to  "At  the  Window,"  partly  because  it  is  per- 
haps my  prime  favorite,  partly  because  a  little 
mark  in  the  table  of  contents  shows  that  it 
pleased  a  dear  friend  of  mine,  partly  because  the 
poem  has  a  history.  Mr.  Howells,  the  editor  of 
the  Atlantic,  opening  his  mail  one  day  in  his 
office  in  1873,  read  this  to  him  first  poem  from 
a  new  poet.  He  was  surprised  and  delighted, 
and  showed  it  to  Mr.  Longfellow,  who  hap- 
pened to  be  in  at  the  time.  He  too  was  charmed 
with  its  simple  fresh  beauty,  and  they  agreed 
that  if  the  author  would  change  the  word  "sap- 
sucker"  Mr.  Howells  would  print  the  poem  in 
the  Atlantic.  The  change  was  made,  the  poem 
appeared  in  the  Atlantic,  and  with  it  began  Mau- 
rice Thompson's  literary  career.  It  is  said,  by 
the  way,  that  both  editor  and  elder  poet  after- 
wards agreed  that  "sapsucker"  should  have 
stayed  as  Maurice  Thompson  wrote  it.  But  to 
my  story.  I  turned  next  to  "Between  the  Poppy 
and  the  Rose,"  because  the 

Two  rare  young  faces,  lit  with  love, 
Between  the  poppy  and  the  rose 

are    Maurice   Thompson's    wife    and   little   girl. 


Maurice  Thompson.  127 

Knowing  him  and  her,  I  know  how  sincere  are 
these  words : 

Oh,  life  is  sweet,  they  make  it  so; 

Its  work  is  lighter  than  repose: 
Come  anything,  so  they  bloom  on 

Between  the  poppy  and  the  rose. 

Next  I  turned  to  "Atalanta,"  which  seems  to  me 
the  truest  and  sweetest  of  his  lyrics,  and  as  I 
read  the  first  two  lines, 

When  spring  grows  old,  and  sleepy  winds 
Set  from  the  South  with  odors  sweet, 

my  pulse  beat  time  to  the  old  ryhthmic  charm  as 
fifteen  years  before.  I  did  not  omit  "A  Pre- 
lude,'' of  course,  and  found  myself  lingering  es- 
pecially over  .the  last  stanza : 

And  when  I  fall,  like  some  old  tree, 
And  subtile  change  makes  mold  of  me, 
There  let  earth  show  a  fertile  line 
Whence  perfect  wild  flowers  leap  and  shine. 

Perhaps  it  was  because  I  could  see  him  again 
as  he  once  recited  these  lines  so  effectively  at 
Vanderbilt,  and  knew  he  liked  them  himself. 
Then  I  read,  perhaps  because  it  is  about  Theoc- 
ritus, of  whom  Maurice  Thompson  was  as  fond 
as  Tennyson  was, 

Those  were  good  times,  in  olden  days, 
Of  which  the  poet  has  his  dreams, 


128  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

When  gods  beset  the  woodland  ways, 
And  lay  in  wait  by  all  the  streams; 

and  immediately  I  was  thinking  once  more  of 
that  favorite  prose  piece,  "The  Threshold  of  the 
Gods."  By  this  time  it  was  easy  to  understand 
why  Longfellow  welcomed  him  as  a  "new  and 
original  singer,  fresh,  joyous,  and  true." 

What  strikes  us  is  not  his  extraordinary  power 
and  fruitfulness,  but  the  trueness  of  his  note  and 
the  finish  of  his  verse — "a  finish  equal  to  Aid- 
rich's,"  said  Mr.  James  Whitcomb  Riley  to  me 
once — in  the  small  volume  of  poems  that  he 
himself  was  willing  to  preserve.  He  was  a  se- 
vere critic  of  his  own  verse  evidently ;  for  while 
most  poets  bring  out  from  time  to  time  a  fresh 
volume  of  their  fugitive  pieces,  Maurice  Thomp- 
son allowed  his  poems  to  appear  only  twice  in 
book  form,  first  as  "Songs  of  Fair  Weather," 
and  lastly  in  1892  as  "Poems/'  only  a  compara- 
tively small  number  of  newer  poems  being  print- 
ed in  the  later  volume  with  those  of  the  earlier. 
He  published  in  journals  poems  that  were  in- 
ferior, but  his  own  taste  rejected  these  when 
it  came  to  preserving  them  in  a  volume.  He 
did  for  himself  what  Matthew  Arnold  thought 
necessary  for  Wordsworth ;  and  while  even  his 
best  may  not  live  forever  like  Wordsworth's,  yet 
they  now  have  their  chance  for  perpetuity. 


Maurice  Thompson.  129 

The  scenes  of  most  of  Maurice  Thompson's 
longer  stories  are  laid  in  the  South,  and  they 
are  the  fruit  doubtless  of  his  annual  Southern 
sojourns.  The  old  Southern  civilization  always 
had  a  fascination  for  him.  Writing,  not  long 
before  the  end,  about  Tuscaloosa,  Alabama,  he 
says: 

Were  I  an  artist,  I  could  revel  here  for  a  month 
or  two,  making  studies  of  these  lofty-pillared  and  tree- 
shaded  mansions ;  were  I  a  poet,  what  more  could  I 
want  of  inspiration  to  song  than  the  dreamy,  fading 
lines  and  shadowy  figures  of  this  great  bygone  civili- 
zation, which  somehow  will  not  disappear  from  these 
brown  hills  and  dilapidated  mansions. 

Southern  women  always  attract  him.  For 
example,  he  says : 

Tuscaloosa  is  a  town  of  beautiful  women.  Wher- 
ever I  walked  I  met  them,  and  could  not  keep  off  the 
wonder  of  their  striking  forms  and  faces.  .  .  .  Tus- 
caloosa women  are  certainly  Southern  in  their  style. 
They  have  the  unmistakable  impress  of  Southern 
breeding,  and  they  are  beautiful.  A  stranger  with 
alert  eyes  in  his  head,  and  a  love  of  feminine  gentle- 
ness, sweetness,  and  symmetry  of  the  colonial  type  in 
his  heart,  can  see  and  feel  this  while  walking  in  the 
streets  of  this  staid  and  picturesque  old  town. 

Of  his  characters,  those  that  survive  from  the 
old  South,  like  Judge  La  Rue,  are  treated  most 
9 


130  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

respectfully,  but  they  are  conventional;  and  the 
Southern  matrons  are  rather  vague  and  shad- 
owy. His  Southern  girls  are  always  well-bred 
and  charming.  Lucie  La  Rue,  in  "A  Tallahas- 
see Girl,"  is  the  best  of  them;  and  "Sweetheart 
Manette" — who  unfolds  in  an  old  Southern  man- 
sion at  Bay  St.  Louis  as  fresh  and  pure  as  a 
magnolia  blossom  in  the  garden — is  of  Lucie's 
type,  if  not  quite  her  equal.  The  younger  men, 
however,  representing  old  South  traditions,  but 
living  in  a  new  order  of  things,  like  Garcin  and 
Charles  cle  Vaudreuil,  seem  almost  unintentional 
caricatures  of  an  order  of  society  with  which 
Maurice  Thompson  was  not  in  sympathy.  In- 
deed, I  do  not  recall  a  single  character  of  his 
Southern  msn  that  took  hold  on  me  strongly. 
The  truth  is.  Maurice  Thompson  \vas  a  South-~ 
westerner:  Kentucky,  Missouri,  and  Indiana 
were  the  habitat  of  his  race,  and  Indiana  had 
been  his  home  since  1868;  Georgia  was  only  the 
sojourn  of  his  youth,  and  Bay  St.  Louis  his  win- 
ter resort.  He  knew  and  loved  the  South,  but 
he  was  not  really  of  it.  He  was  full  of  buoyant 
Americanism,  and  much  more  in  sympathy  with 
the  bluff,  hearty  man  of  the  prairie  than  with 
the  Virginian,  the  Carolinian,  or  the  Mississip- 
pian,  the  descendant  of  the  Cavalier  or  the  Cre- 


Maurice  Thompson.  131 

ole.  He  does  not  intentionally  caricature,  but 
his  creations  betray  his  sympathy. 

Readers  of  his  stories,  as  well  as  of  his  oc- 
casional articles  on  realism,  know  what  he  liked 
in  a  story. 

Give  me  [he  says]  almost  any  leisurely  tale  of  by- 
gone days,  with  the  blue  of  romantic  distance  in  it, 
a  reasonable  amount  of  heroism  thrown  in,  some  gen- 
uine love,  a  trifle  of  mystery,  plenty  of  well-set  inci- 
dents, and  a  triumphant  ending. 

That  was  reading  for  a  hot  day,  but  it  describes 
his  own  most  successful  novel,  "Alice  of  Old 
Vincennes."  Happy  man !  At  the  time  of  his 
death  he  was  rejoicing  in  the  romantic  revival 
— "historical  romances  selling  as  Zola's  worst 
novels  never  sold" — and  his  own  story  was  the 
most  popular  of  the  year.  "It  is  first  and  fore- 
most a  tale  of  love  and  war,  with  a  bright-eyed 
girl,  Indian  warfare,  a  Catholic  priest  with  a 
mysterious,  worldly  past,  a  young  Virginian 
who  fights  for  his  country,  and  a  couple  of  Brit- 
ish villains."  The  scene  is  Yincennes,  Indiana, 
a  region  every  foot  of  which  Maurice  Thomp- 
son knew  like  his  own  lawn ;  most  of  the  char- 
acters are  historical,  and  the  period  is  an  im- 
portant one  of  American  history,  for  Colonel 
George  Rogers  Clark's  recapture  of  old  Vin- 
cennes was  the  winning  of  the  Northwestern 


132  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

Territory  for  American  arms ;  but  the  purpose 
is  not  didactic,  and  the  romantic  element  pre- 
dominates. 

"Is  'Alice  of  Old  Vincennes'  a  great  novel? 
No,  it  is  not!"  We  are  letting  Maurice  Thomp- 
son's own  paper,  The  Independent,  ask  and  an- 
swer: 

As  a  tale  it  reminds  us  of  Cooper's  works,  and  there- 
fore it  will  never  satisfy  those  who  crave  character 
development  and  human  nature  analysis  as  exempli- 
fied in  the  writings  of  Thackeray  and  George  Eliot. 
It  is  a  clever,  good,  and  interesting  story,  but,  meas- 
ured by  classical  tests,  it  is  not  great. 

Just  here  a  word  may  be  said  on  Maurice 
Thompson's  attitude  toward  realism  in  fiction. 
It  \vas  war  to  the  knife  with  him.  He  was  in 
the  fight  against  it  in  his  earliest  critical  work, 
and  he  was  at  it  when  he  died.  He  had  his 
flings  at  it  in  his  stories  and  in  the  magazines, 
but  his  main  attacks  were  made  through  The  In- 
dependent. Along  with  his  war  upon  realism 
went  his  hostility  to  everything  that  posed  un- 
der the  name  of  "art  for  art's  sake,"  especially 
the  freedom  of  handling  sexual  questions  that 
characterizes  so  much  of  French  and  Russian 
literature.  He  was  sometimes  extreme,  as  for 
instance  in  practically  classing  Tolstoi's  "Anna 
Karenina"  and  Hardy's  "Tess"  wTith  Zola's  worst. 


Maurice  Thompson.  133 

4 

But  he  was  far  more  right  than  wrong  in  his  at- 
titude, and  there  can  be  no  question  of  his  thor- 
ough sincerity.  It  might  be  more  legitimately 
questioned  whether  he  is  as  nearly  right  on  real- 
ism as  represented  by  James  and  Howells.  But 
there  can  be  no  doubt  about  his  opposing  micro- 
scopic analysis  as  sincerely  as  "psychological" 
novels;  for  though  Mr.  Howells  was  his  per- 
sonal friend,  and  he  admired  him  as  perhaps  no 
other  man  living,  he  never  failed  to  attack  Mr. 
Howells'  theories  of  art  in  fiction.  His  views 
on  these  questions  are  best  stated  in  "Ethics  of 
Literary  Art" ;  and,  even  if  they  are  sometimes 
extreme,  they  are  good  and  wholesome  reading. 

There  was  an  unmistakable  freshness  about 
Maurice  Thompson's  poetry  and  nature  studies, 
which  he  would  have  been  glad  to  have  traced 
back  to  his  reading  of  the  Greek  poets.  He  con- 
stantly uses  Homer's  name,  though  he  probably 
read  him  less  than  he  read  Pindar  and  ^Eschy- 
lus.  But  Theocritus  and  Sappho  he  loved.  The 
latter  he  put,  as  other  people  do,  above  all  other 
women  poets ;  and  the  former  he  considered  not 
only  the  greatest  of  bucolic  poets,  but  one  of  the 
greatest  literary  geniuses  of  the  world.  He 
wrote  articles  about  both,  and  was  constantly 
using  them  for  quotation  or  illustration  in  his 
essays,  bird  studies,  poems,  lectures — every- 


134  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

where.  Greek  was  a  passion  with  him.  He 
translated  lyric  fragments,  and  put  the  Seventh 
Idyll  of  Theocritus  into  a  beautiful  English 
dress ;  but  he  knew  that  ''translation  is  impossi- 
ble"— his  own  phrase — and  he  was  constantly 
urging  young  people,  especially  would-be  writ- 
ers, to  learn  Greek. 

The  most  striking  characteristic  of  lyric  art  [says  he 
in  "The  Pierian  Freshness" — Independent,  January  19. 
fSo-j]  is  the  pressing  together  of  pregnant  words  with 
such  force  that  the  quintessence  of  blended  melody  is 
forced  out.  It  is  like  the  crushing  of  ripe  grapes ;  you 
hear  the  bubble  of  wine  and  catch  the  musty  aroma 
at  the  same  time.  The  masters  of  Greek  song  had  this 
power  of  condensed  expression  in  the  highest  degree. 
Pindar  made  phrases  which  suggest  absolute  control 
of  language.  They  open  vistas  of  beaut}-;  yet  when 
turned  into  the  best  English  paraphrase,  they  are  noth- 
ing but  crude  bombast.  There  are  lyrical  snatches  in 
the  Idylls  of  Theocritus  so  enchantingly  beautiful  that 
they  startle  one  with  an  added  surprise  at  each  read- 
ing. The  thrill  does  not  come  from  an  unexpected 
source,  and  yet  it  connects  itself  in  some  way  directly 
with  one's  receptivity,  and  so  perfectly  that  it  is  like 
drinking  wine  whose  flavor  and  bouquet  one  has  never 
before  dreamed  of ;  but  whose  touch  slakes  a  great 
thirst  which  until  now  has  consumed  one  unawares. 
This  novelty,  this  dew-dashed  freshness,  this  absolutely 
alien  quality  of  surprise,  and  this  directness  of  appeal, 
give  to  the  reading  of  Greek  poetry  a  fecundating 
power  which  serves  genius  a  precious  turn. 


Maurice  Thompson.  135 

Some  of  the  great  English  poets,  like  Tenny- 
son and  Swinburne,  have  appropriated  even  more 
of  the  Greek  spirit  and  have  done  more  for  the 
Greek  cause;  but  I  do  not  know  any  American 
poet  who  has  been  so  Greek  in  spirit  and  has 
drunk  as  deep  of  Greek  lyric  poetry.  Like  Mr. 
Gilder,  who  said  to  the  students  of  Vanderbilt 
University,  "The  eternal  canons  of  style  are  in 
the  Greek,"  Maurice  Thompson  had  not  aca- 
demic training;  but  he  read  Greek  all  his  life, 
and  never  so  much  apparently  as  toward  the 
end. 

I  meant  to  write  a  careful,  critical  paper  on 
Maurice  Thompson's  writings ;  but  it  is  impres- 
sionistic— rather  than  critical — reminiscential, 
personal.  How  could  I  help  it?  Some  of  the 
very  books  I  have  been  rereading  he  gave  me 
himself,  and  on  the  fly  leaf  is  inscribed  in  his 
own  hand,  "With  affectionate  friendship  of  Mau- 
rice Thompson."  When  the  new  volume  of 
"Poems"  was  coming  out,  he  wrote  me :  "The 
first  copy  is  for  my  wife,  the  next  for  you  and 
Baskervill."  He  was  my  friend,  and  his  face 
and  voice  kept  obtruding  themselves  from  the 
books  that  he  gave  me ;  and  so  the  paper  is  not 
critical.  But,  at  any  rate,  it  tells  what  I  think 
of  his  literary  work  and  of  him  as  author  and 
friend. 


VIII. 
SIDNEY  LANIER  AS  POET. 

"LANIER  did  not  live  to  sing  his  song!"  I 
had  been  saying  that  to  myself  all  summer.  And 
yet  "The  Marshes  of  Glynn"  and  "Sunrise,"  his 
best  poem  and  his  last,  are  great  songs.  They 
are  parts  of  the  poem  that  he  lived  and  of  the 
message  of  song  he  came  into  the  world  to  de- 
liver, but  only  parts,  just  two  of  his  projected 
"Hymns  of  the  Marshes,"  specimen  blocks  from 
the  great  temple  of  song  he  had  planned  and  was 
building  in  his  soul.  He  did  not  sing  his  song, 
because  when  he  came  to  himself  and  found  his 
voice,  the  time  was  so  short  and  he  was  so  hin- 
dered. But  how  can  this  be?  He  died  in  his 
fortieth  year,  having  "lived  fourteen  years  longer 
than  Keats  and  ten  years  longer  than  Shelley, 
and  yet  the  amount  of  his  printed  remains  is 
probably  smaller  than  that  which  each  of  them 
left  behind."1  Surely  he  had  time  enough !  But 
no,  he  had  not,  as  the  facts  of  his  life  will  make 
evident. 

^tedman's  letter  in  the  Lanier  "Memorial." 
(136) 


SIDNEY    LANIER. 


Sidney  Lanier  as  Poet.  137 

Sidney  Lanier  was  a  precocious  boy,  and  his 
earliest  passion  was  for  music,  where  probably 
his  really  greatest  talent  lay.  Musical  talent 
was  hereditary  in  his  family,  for  three  of  his 
Huguenot  ancestors  were  in  successive  genera- 
tions in  high  favor  as  musical  composers  or  di- 
rectors of  music  at  the  courts  of  Elizabeth, 
James  I.,  Charles  I.,  and  Charles  II.,  and  his 
Scotch-descended  maternal  ancestors  had  been, 
in  more  than  one  generation,  ''gifted  in  poetry, 
music,  and  oratory."  He  says  in  a  letter  to  Paul 
Hayne:  "I  could  play  passably  well  on  several 
instruments  before  I  could  write  legibly,  and 
since  then  the  very  deepest  of  my  life  has  been 
filled  with  music."  Though  he  was,  as  a  fellow- 
student  writes,  "a  persistent  student,  an  omniv- 
orous reader  of  books,  and  in  his  college  classes 
was  easily  first  in  mathematics,  as  well  as  in  his 
other  studies,"  yet  his  bent  was  to  music.  "I 
have  seen  him  walk  up  and  down  the  room," 
says  this  same  college  chum,  "and  with  his  flute 
extemporize  the  sweetest  music  ever  vouchsafed 
to  mortal  ear.  At  such  times  i*  *vould  seem  as 
if  his  soul  were  in  a  trance,  and  could  only  find 
existence,  expression,  in  the  ecstasy  of  tone,  that 
would  catch  our  souls  with  his  into  the  seventh 
heaven  of  harmony."  This  trance  state  seems 
to  have  been  not  infrequent  at  this  period.  "Ap- 


138  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

patently  unconscious,  he  would  seem  to  hear  the 
richest  music ;  or  again  he  would  awake  from  a 
deep  trance,  alone,  on  the  floor  of  his  room,  and 
the  nervous  strain  would  leave  him  sadly  shaken 
in  nerves."  It  was  of  this  musical  gift  that  he 
himself  first  became  aware. 

I  am  [he  writes  in  his  college  notebook]  more  than 
all  perplexed  by  this  fact,  that  the  prime  inclination, 
that  is,  natural  bent  (which  I  have  checked,  though), 
of  my  nature  is  to  music;  and  for  that  I  have  the 
greatest  talent;  indeed,  not  boasting,  for  God  gave  it 
me,  I  have  an  extraordinary  musical  talent,  and  feel 
it  within  me  plainly  that  I  could  rise  as  high  as  any 
composer.  But  [he  addsl  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  be- 
lieve that  I  was  intended  for  a  musician,  because  it 
seems  so  small  a  business  in  comparison  with  other 
things  which,  it  seems  to  me,  I  might  do. 

This  feeling,  too,  was  shared  by  his  parents, 
and  was  the  dominant  one  of  the  people  among 
whom  he  was  born  and  lived.  Still  the  passion 
for  musical  expression  was  imperious.  "Is  it 
genius?  he  asks  all  atremble,  and  begins  a  mem- 
orable twenty-year  struggle  with  earnest,  hum- 
ble questionings  as  to  God's  will  concerning  the 
use  of  it." 

But  though  he  might  not  then  think  of  mak- 
ing music  his  life  work,  he  might  solace  himself 
with  it.  "It  was  the  violin-voice  that  above  all 
things  commanded  his  soul/'  but  in  deference 


Sidney  Lanier  as  Poet.  139 

to  his  father's  wish  he  gave  himself  to  the  flute. 
He  slipped  his  flute,  hidden  in  his  sleeve,  into 
Point  Lookout  prison  with  him  in'  1864;  with  it 
he  solaced  himself  in  his  captivity  and  softened 
the  hearts  of  his  captors ;  with  it  he  left  prison 
when  exchanged,  and  when  on  the  voyage  home 
he  was  at  death's  door,  with  illness  induced  by 
thin  clothing  in  cold  weather,  the  first  thing  he 
asked  for  as  he  began  to  revive  was  his  flute. 

We  got  him  into  clean  blankets  [writes  the  good 
lady  who  saved  his  life],  but  at  first  he  could  not  en- 
dure the  pain  from  the  fire,  he  was  so  nearly  frozen. 
We  gave  him  some  hot  soup  and  more  brandy,  and 
he  lay  quiet  till  after  midnight.  Then  he  asked  for  his 
flute  and  began  playing.  As  he  played  the  first  few 
notes,  you  should  have  heard  the  yell  of  joy  that  came 
up  from  the  shivering  wretches  down  below,  who  knew 
that  their  comrade  was  alive.  And  there  we  sat  en- 
tranced about  him,  the  colonel  and  his  wife,  Lilla  and 
I,  weeping  at  the  tender  music,  as  the  tones  of  new 
warmth  and  color  and  hope  came  like  liquid  melody 
from  his  magic  flute. 

Lanier  recovered  from  this  desperate  illness 
that  followed  his  prison  experience,  then  for 
several  years  was  successively  clerk  in  Mont- 
gomery, schoolmaster  in  Prattville,  Alabama,  and 
practicing  lawyer,  with  his  father,  in  Macon, 
till  December,  1872,  when  renewed  ill-health 
drove  him  for  his  lungs  to  San  Antonio,  where 


140  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

he  remained  till  April,  1873.  During  the  last 
five  years  there  had  been  strengthening  in  Lanier 
"the  conviction  that  special  talents  had  been  giv- 
en him,  and  that  the  time  might  be  short."  He 
did  not  find  himself  drawn  to  the  law,  but  he 
did  feel  called  to  music  and  literature,  and,  de- 
termined now  to  pursue  them  so  long  as  he 
could  keep  death  at  bay,  went  northward  in  the 
fall  of  1873  "armed  only  with  a  silver  Boehm 
flute  and  some  dozen  of  steel  pens."  He  found 
an  engagement  as  first  flute  for  the  Peabody 
Symphony  Concerts  in  Baltimore,  but  this  alone 
did  not  afford  sufficient  bread  for  his  wife  and 
babes,  and  his  father  urged  him  to  return  to 
Macon  to  the  law.  His  spirit  was  ripe  for  the 
great  work  he  had  undertaken.  Before  finally 
breaking  with  the  law  and  launching  on  the  sea 
of  music  and  poetry,  he  had  written  his  wife 
from  Texas: 

Were  it  not  for  some  circumstances  which  make 
such  a  proposition  seem  absurd  in  the  highest  degree, 
I  would  think  that  I  am  shortly  to  die,  and  that  my 
spirit  hath  been  singing  its  swan-song  before  dissolu- 
tion. All  day  my  soul  hath  been  cutting  swiftly  into 
the  great  space  of  the  subtle,  unspeakable  deep,  driven 
by  wind  after  wind  of  heavenly  melody.  The  very 
inner  spirit  and  essence  of  all  wind-songs,  bird-songs, 
passion-songs,  folk-songs,  country-songs,  sex-songs, 
soul-songs,  and  body-songs  hath  blown  upon  me  in 


Sidney  Lanier  as  Poet.  141 

quick  gusts  like  the  breath  of  passion,  and  sailed  me 
into  a  sea  of  vast  dreams,  whereof  each  wave  is  at 
once  a  vision  and  a  melody. 

Again,  soon  after  going  to  Baltimore,  he 
wrote  to  his  wife: 

So  many  great  ideas  for  art  are  born  to  me  each 
day,  I  am  swept  away  into  the  land  of  All-Delight  by 
their  strenuous  sweet  whirlwind,  and  I  find  within  my- 
self such  entire  yet  humble  confidence  of  possessing 
every  single  element  of  power  to  carry  them  all  out, 
save  the  little  paltry  sum  of  money  that  would  suffice 
to  keep  us  clothed  and  fed  in  the  meantime. 

His  confidence  in  his  powers  was  expressed, 
about  this  time,  still  more  fully  in  a  letter  to 
his  wife,  whom  he  doubtless  felt  it  necessary  to 
encourage  and  sustain.  He  was  just  then  prob- 
ably having  the  experience  of  seeing  his  first 
great  poem,  "Corn,"  rejected  by  all  the  New 
York  editors. 

Know  then  [he  writes]  that  disappointments  were 
inevitable  and  will  still  come  until  I  have  fought  the 
battle  which  every  great  artist  has  had  to  fight  since 
time  began.  This — dimly  felt  while  I  was  doubtful  of 
my  own  vocation  and  powers — is  clear  as  the  sun  to 
me  now  that  I  know,  through  the  fiercest  tests  of  life, 
that  I  am  in  soul,  and  shall  be  in  life  and  utterance, 
a  great  poet. 

Sure  now  what  his  life  work  was  to  be — music 
and  poetry — he  began  "as  brave  and  sad  a  strug- 


142  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

gle  as  the  history  of  genius  records."  He  had 
first  of  all  two  things  to  do:  make  a  living  for 
wife  and  children,  and  get  ready  by  much  study 
and  wide  reading  for  his  vocation  as  a  poet. 
For  music  he  did  not  need  to  get  ready;  that 
came  by  intuition.  Perhaps  his  first  great  per- 
formance before  men  who  could  really  judge 
was  at  a  practice  of  the  Maennerchor  in  San 
Antonio,  Texas.  When  he  played  in  September 
of  that  year  for  Asgar  Hamerik  a  composition 
of  his  own,  the  latter  "declared  the  composition 
to  be  that  of  an  artist  and  the  playing  to  be 
almost  perfect,"  concluding  with  an  offer  to 
Lanier  of  the  position  of  first  flute  in  the  Pea- 
body  Orchestra  which  he  was  planning.  After 
he  had  played  on  a  great  bass-flute  at  Badger's 
establishment  in  New  York,  Badger  wrote  to 
some  one :  "Lanier  is  astonishing.  .  .  .  But 
you  ought  to  hear  him  play  the  bass-flute.  You 
would  then  say,  'Let  me  pass  from  the  earth 
with  the  tones  sounding  in  my  ears !' ':  The 
next  year  he  played  for  the  great  Dr.  Damrosch. 

I  sang  the  wind-song  to  him  [writes  Lanier]. 
When  I  finished,  he  came  and  shook  my  hand,  and 
said  it  was  wonderful  in  view  of  my  education;  and 
that  he  was  greatly  astonished  and  pleased  with  the 
poetry  of  the  piece  and  the  enthusiasm  of  its  ren- 
dering. 


Sidney  Lanier  as  Poet.  143 

Lanier  needed,  then,  no  special  preparation 
for  music,  but  for  his  theory  of  the  science  of 
English  verse,  already  developing  in  his  mind, 
and  for  the  poetry  with  which  his  soul  was 
travailing,  study  was  necessary.  He  threw  him- 
self with  unbounded  enthusiasm  and  success  into 
the  study  of  English  literature,  mastered  Anglo- 
Saxon  and  early  English  texts,  and  made  vari- 
ous and  wide  excursions  into  the  fields  of  phi- 
losophy, history,  and  science,  as  well  as  art  and 
music.  He  realized  that  a  poet  must  have 
knowledge  of  things  as  well  as  of  men,  that  his 
studies  should  be  comprehensive  and  his  schol- 
arship accurate.  He  had  patience  to  wait,  "not 
taking  thought  of  being  late,  so  it  give  advan- 
tage to  be  more  fit."  "The  trouble  with  Poe 
was,"  he  said,  "he  did  not  know  enough.  He 
needed  to  know  a  good  many  more  things  in 
order  to  be  a  great  poet." 

This  spirit  of  study,  this  laying  of  deep  and 
broad  foundations  for  the  superstructure  he  was 
to  build,  was  doubtless  in  great  part  the  natural 
adaptation  of  his  genius  to  the  requirements  of 
the  times;  but  it  is  significant  of  much  that  this 
new  epoch  of  development  on  his  part  coincided 
with  his  removal  to  Baltimore  where  the  first 
real  university  in  America  was  about  to  open. 
The  founding  of  Johns  Hopkins  University  was 


144  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

the  greatest  event  in  the  history  of  the  higher 
education  in  America.  It  was  to  be  a  university 
dominated  by  a  spirit  of  research,  not  a  college 
for  teaching  merely.  It  brought  together  the 
ablest  faculty  ever  assembled  up  to  that  time  in 
America,  chosen  simply  for  their  eminence  in 
their  specialties.  Sylvester,  Gildersleeve,  Row- 
land, Remsen,  Martin,  and  a  little  later  Warren, 
Brooks,  Herbert  Adams,  Ely,  Bloomfield,  and 
Elliott,  form  a  galaxy  of  productive  scholars 
such  as  no  other  institution  has  ever  got  to- 
gether at  one  time,  and  the  gathering  of  such  a 
group  was  of  itself  enough  to  give  President 
Gilman  a  foremost  place  among  great  university 
presidents.  Great  scholars  attract  clever  students, 
and  soon  the  pick  of  the  young  talent  of  America 
was  doing  graduate  work  at  Johns  Hopkins, 
such  an  array  of  young  men  of  high  talent  and 
earnest  purpose  as  no  other  American  institu- 
tion has  ever  had  or  will  ever  have  at  one  time 
within  its  walls.  Germany  had  been  drawing  the 
best  of  these  to  her  various  universities,  but  the 
Johns  Hopkins  faculty  now  demonstrated  that 
Germany's  best  advantages  might  be  had  at 
home.  Happy  the  American  students  who  were 
there  in  that  first  great  period!  The  buildings 
were  unsightly,  but  the  atmosphere  was  unmis- 
takable. Said  President  Adams  after  a  visit  to 


Sidney  Lanier  as  Poet.  145 

Johns  Hopkins:  "The  atmosphere  of  a  univer- 
sity, of  graduate  work,  of  research,  pervaded  the 
place.  You  could  feel  it  before  you  entered  a 
building." 

I  like  to  think  that  Lanier's  spirit  of  study, 
wide  special  reading,  research  in  the  science  of 
English  verse  and  in  the  development  of  per- 
sonality, were  due  in  large  measure  to  his  Balti- 
more residence  and  the  atmosphere  of  Johns 
Hopkins  University,  and  that  in  this  respect 
Baltimore  was  better  for  him  just  then  than 
Philadelphia,  or  New  York,  or  even  Boston 
might  have  been. 

Lanier  had  been  writing  poems  since  his  boy- 
hood, and  publishing  occasionally,  and  a  num- 
ber of  these  are  preserved — now  printed  as  "un- 
revised  early  poems,"  in  the  volume  edited  by 
his  wife;  but,  clever  as  some  of  these  are,  none 
gives  promise  of  his  best  mature  work — "Corn," 
"Clover,"  "Sunrise."  There  is  nothing — unless 
it  be  "Betrayal"  (1868)— that  needed  to  live,  had 
he  not  sung  greater  songs  afterwards;  nothing 
approaching  the  promise  of  Milton's  hymn  on 
the  "Nativity,"  nor  like  any  of  Keats'  best,  nor 
like  Tennyson's  "Oenone"  or  "The  Lotus-Eat- 
ers,"  nor  Rossetti's  "Blessed  Damozel,"  nor  Bry- 
ant's "Thanatopsis."  He  is,  in  the  lateness  of 
his  development,  more  like  Stephen  Phillips, 
10 


146  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

whose  "Primavera"  and  "Eremus"  would  be  for- 
gotten but  for  the  "Christ  in  Hades"  and  "Mar- 
pessa,"  "Paolo  and  Francesca,"  and  "Herod." 
Only  in  his  twenty-seventh  year  did  Stephen 
Phillips  attract  the  attention  of  the  world. 
"Corn,"  written  when  Lanier  was  thirty-two, 
was  the  first  fruit  of  his  new  stage  of  progress 
and  of  his  new  environment.  "In  'Corn'  I  have 
aimed  at  popularity,"  he  wrote  Paul  Hayne; 
"I  mean  the  higher  popularity  given  to  artistic 
work."  And  Paul  Hayne  could  recall  twelve 
years  afterwards  "the  impression  which  that 
fine  lyric  made  upon  him."  But  the  New 
York  editors  unanimously  declined  it.  When 
it  did  appear  in  Lippincott's  in  February,  1875, 
its  merit  was  at  once  recognized  by  Mr.  Gibson 
Peacock,  editor  of  the  Philadelphia  Evening 
Bulletin,  a  journalist  of  the  old  school,  a  col- 
lege man,  widely  read  in  English  literature, 
familiar  with  the  modern  languages,  traveled 
both  in  America  and  Europe,  cultivated  in  music 
and  dramatic  criticism.  He  wrote  an  enthusias- 
tic notice  of  "Corn"  for  his  own  paper,  and  that 
was  the  first  authoritative  voice  that  called  hail, 
the  first  hand  outstretched  to  welcome  Lanier. 
It  was  like  Mr.  Howells  and  Longfellow  reading 
together  the  manuscript  of  Maurice  Thompson's 
"At  the  Window"  and  deciding  to  publish  it  in 


Sidney  Lanier  as  Poet.  147 

the  Atlantic.  No  wonder  that  Maurice  Thomp- 
son, though  he  always  disliked  and  opposed  Mr. 
Howells's  theory  of  fiction,  loved  him  better 
than  any  other  man ;  no  wonder  that  Lanier  felt 
toward  his  first  discoverer  like  Mahomet  toward 
the  old  Cadi j ah.  "You  love  me  better  than  you 
did  her?"  asked  the  young  and  brilliant  Ayesha. 
"No,  by  Allah !"  answered  Mahomet.  "She  be- 
lieved in  me  when  none  else  would  believe."  It 
seems  strange  now  that  the  New  York  editors 
failed  unanimously  to  recognize  the  merit  of 
"Corn";  for  it  is  a  great  poem — fresh,  original, 
sent  straight  from  the  heart  and  soul  of  a  man 
of  genius,  conceived  on  a  large  plan,  strong  in 
its  sweep  and  swing,  two  hundred  lines  in  length, 
and  yet  with  scarcely  a  weak  verse.  But  its  first 
rejection  by  the  editors  did  not  dismay  him. 

I  remember  that  it  has  always  been  so  [he  wrote], 
that  the  new  man  has  always  to  work  his  way  over 
these  Alps  of  stupidity,  much  as  that  ancient  general 
crossed  the  actual  Alps — splitting  the  rocks  with  vine- 
gar and  fire — that  is,  by  bitterness  and  suffering. 
D.  V.  I  will  split  them. 

"The  Symphony"  was  his  next  great  poem. 
A  letter  of  his  to  Mr.  Peacock  graphically  de- 
scribes the  birth  and  growth  of  it.  He  writes, 
March  24,  1875 : 

I  am  much  better,  and,  though  in  daily  fight  against 


148  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

severe  pain,  am  hard  at  work.  About  four  days  ago, 
a  certain  poem,  which  I  had  vaguely  ruminated  for  a 
week  before,  took  hold  of  me  like  a  real  James  River 
ague,  and  I  have  been  in  a  mortal  shake  with  the 
same,  day  and  night,  ever  since.  I  call  it  "The  Sym- 
phony" :  I  personify  each  instrument  in  the  orchestra, 
and  make  them  discuss  various  deep  social  questions 
of  the  times,  in  the  progress  of  the  music.  It  is  now 
nearly  finished;  and  I  shall  be  rejoiced  thereat,  for  it 
verily  racks  all  the  bones  of  my  spirit. 

Of  this  poem  Mr.  Peacock  wrote  a  notice, 
which  was  extensively  copied  in  Southern  pa- 
pers ;  but  it  had  larger  results  still.  Mr.  Peacock 
sent  the  poem  to  Bayard  Taylor  (then  at  the 
height  of  his  fame),  and  Taylor  promptly  wrote 
his  warm  appreciation  to  Mr.  Peacock,  which  he 
in  turn  forwarded  to  Lanier.  Lanier  sent  his 
thanks  to  Bayard  Taylor,  and  this  acquaintance, 
which  speedily  became  friendship,  was  an  un- 
speakable boon  to  Sidney  Lanier.  The  latter 
was,  as  the  world  now  knows,  a  genius,  an  orig- 
inal poet ;  but  his  soul  was  starving.  How  sin- 
cerely jubilant  was  the  opening  sentence  of  his 
first  letter: 

When  a  man,  determined  to  know  as  well  what  is 
under  as  what  is  above,  has  made  bis  plunge  down  to 
the  bottom  of  the  great  Sea  Doubtful  of  poetic  en- 
deavor, and  has  looked  not  only  upon  the  enchanted 
caverns  there,  but  upon  the  dead  bodies  also,  there 


Sidney  Lanier  as  Poet.  149 

comes  a  moment  as  his  head  reemerges  above  the  sur- 
face, when  his  eyes  are  ablink  with  salt  water,  when 
the  horizon  is  a  round  blur,  and  when  he  wastes 
strength  that  might  be  applied  to  swimming  in  reso- 
lutely defying  what  seems  to  be  the  gray  sky  overhead. 
In  such  a  moment  a  friendly  word — and  all  the  more 
if  it  be  a  friendly  word  from  a  strong  swimmer  whom 
one  perceives  far  ahead  advancing  calmly  and  swiftly 
— brings  with  it  a  pleasure  so  large  and  grave  that, 
as  voluble  thanks  are  impossible,  so  a  simple  and  sin- 
cere acknowledgment  is  inevitable. 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  at  this  time 
Bayard  Taylor  had  reached  the  height  of  his 
fame  and  popularity.  He  had  been  for  a  quarter 
of  a  century  a  prominent  figure  before  the  public 
as  traveler,  lecturer,  and  diplomatist,  was  the 
author  of  perhaps  twenty-five  volumes,  and  had 
already  four  years  previously  crowned  all  his 
literary  achievements  with  his  monumental  trans- 
lation of  Goethe's  "Faust."  Bayard  Taylor's  let- 
ter about  "The  Symphony"  was  speedily  fol- 
lowed by  another  (August  17,  1875),  which 
said:  "I  can  only  repeat  how  much  joy  the  evi- 
dence of  a  new,  true  poet  always  gives  me — such 
a  poet  as  I  believe  you  to  be.  I  am  heartily 
glad  to  welcome  you  to  the  fellowship  of  au- 
thors." That  was  like  Goethe's  call  to  Carlyle 
across  the  German  Ocean,  hailing  "the  advent 
of  a  new  moral  force,  the  effects  of  which  it  was 


150  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

impossible  to  predict" ;  and  Bayard  Taylor's  com- 
mendation heartened  Lanier  as  nothing  had  ever 
done.  It  was  "a  little  of  the  wine  of  success 
and  praise" — his  words  to  Paul  Hayne — "with- 
out which  no  man  ever  does  the  very  best  he 
might."  "When  we  meet,"  Taylor  added  in  that 
same  second  letter,  "I  hope  to  be  able  to  show 
you  more  satisfactorily  than  by  these  written 
words  the  genuineness  of  the  interest  which  each 
author  always  feels  in  all  others ;  and  perhaps  I 
may  be  also  able  to  extend  your  own  acquaint- 
ance among  those  whom  you  have  a  right  to 
know."  Two  weeks  later  (September  2,  1875), 
Bayard  Taylor  sends  another  gracious  word: 
"I  can't  tell  you  how  rejoiced  I  am  to  find  in 
you  the  genuine  poetic  nature,  temperament, 
and  morale.''  Then  begins  a  series  of  repeated 
kindnesses  on  Taylor's  part  which  continued  till 
his  death  three  years  later.  He  sends  Lanier 
tickets  to  the  Goethe  celebration,  gives  him  when 
he  visits  Boston  letters  to  Longfellow  and  Low- 
ell, commends  him  to  Whittier  and  Aldrich, 
takes  him  to  the  Century  Club  to  meet  Bryant, 
Stoddard,  and  Stedman,  and  acts  as  interme- 
diary for  Lanier  in  bringing  numerous  poems  to 
the  magazine  editors.  Shortly  after,  when  Gen- 
eral Hawley,  President  of  the  United  States 
Centennial  Commission,  asked  Bayard  Taylor  to 


Sidney  Lanier  as  Poet.  151 

suggest  a  poet  not  of  New  England  for  the 
"Centennial  Cantata,"  Taylor  named  Lanier, 
which  appointment  brought  Lanier's  name  for 
the  first  time  very  prominently  before  the  public. 

Don't  overvalue  my  friendly  good  will  [wrote  in 
this  connection  the  generous-souled  Bayard  Taylor], 
nor  ever  let  it  impose  the  least  sense  of  obligation. 
I  am  very  glad  when  I  can  be  of  some  encouragement 
to  a  man  in  whom  I  have  faith. 

Lanier  wrote  once  (November  24,  1876)  : 

I  have  to  send  you  my  thanks  very  often:  I  hope 
they  don't  become  monotonous  to  you.  Your  praise 
has  really  given  me  a  great  deal  of  genuine  and  fruit- 
ful pleasure.  The  truth  is  that,  as  for  censure,  I  am 
overloaded  with  my  own;  but  as  for  commendation, 
I  am  mainly  in  a  state  of  famine ;  so  that  while  I  can- 
not, for  very  surfeit,  profitably  digest  the  former,  I 
have  such  a  stomach  for  the  latter  as  would  astonish 
gods  and  men. 

After  some  such  expression  of  gratitude,  Tay- 
lor wrote : 

You  must  not  think,  my  dear  friend,  that  simply 
because  I  recognize  your  genius  and  character,  and 
the  purity  of  the  aims  of  both,  I  confer  any  obliga- 
tion on  you !  From  you,  and  all  like  you,  few  as  they 
are,  I  draw  my  own  encouragement  for  that  work  of 
mine  which  I  think  may  possibly  live. 

Bayard  Taylor's   faith  in  Lanier  was   shown 


152  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

in  his  friendly  criticisms  and  suggestions-  on 
Lanier's  "Cantata"  (witness  especially  the  long 
letter  of  January  12,  1876),  and  on  all  his  other 
poetical  work  after  this.  For  I  find  at  least 
a  score  of  letters  between  the  two  poets  where 
the  younger  asks  and  the  elder  gives  criticism 
on  poems  or  suggests  magazines  to  try.  Indeed, 
after  reading  in  one  hundred  pages  of  letters 
repeated  evidence  of  Bayard  Taylor's  unfailing 
kindness,  sympathy,  good  judgment,  and  faith 
in  Lanier,  one  feels  how  peculiarly  appropriate 
was  Lanier's  line  characterizing  his  distinguished 
friend : 

In  soul  and  stature  larger  than  thy  kind. 

And  now  it  is  worth  while  to  note  the  effect 
of  the  recognition  and  encouragement  of  people 
like  Mr.  Peacock,  Bayard  Taylor,  and  Charlotte 
Cushman — for  she,  Mr.  Peacock,  Bayard  Tay- 
lor, and  Paul  Hayne  were  the  four  friends  who, 
with  his  wife,  most  influenced  Lanier's  life — 
and  the  stimulus  of  his  new  environment  upon 
the  sensitive  and  susceptible  nature  of  the  poet. 
In  July,  1876,  Lanier  wrote  to  Bayard  Taylor: 

I  can't  tell  you  with  what  ravishing  freedom  and 
calmness  I  find  myself  writing  in  these  days,  nor  how 
supreme  and  sunny  the  poetic  region  seems  to  lie  in 
front,  like  broad  upland  fields  and  slopes.  I  write  all 


Sidney  Lanier  as  Poet.  153 

the  time,  and  sit  down  to  the  paper  with  poems  already 
done.  I  hope  to  have  out  another  volume  soon  of 
work  which  will  show  a  much  quieter  technique  than 
this  one.  A  modern  French  writer  has  spoken  of  the 
works  of  the  great  artists  of  the  world  as  being  like 
the  high  white  clouds  which  sail  calmly  over  a  green 
valley  on  a  summer  day.  This  seems  to  me  very 
beautiful. 

Not  even  grave  illness  can  shake  the  superb 
confidence  with  which  he  is  now  inspired.  He 
writes,  December  6,  1876,  to  Bayard  Taylor : 

My  physician  has  become  alarmed  at  the  gravity  and 
persistence  of  my  illness,  and  orders  me  immediately  to 
Florida,  denouncing  death  unless  a  warm  climate  is 
speedily  reached.  He  might  as  well  talk  to  the  stars 
whose  light  hasn't  yet  reached  us,  as  try  to  persuade 
me  to  die  before  I've  written  my  five  additional  vol- 
umes of  poems. 

Five  weeks  later  he  writes  from  Florida: 

I  see  no  reason  to  doubt  that  I  shall  be  soon  at 
work  again.  In  truth,  I  "bubble  song"  continually 
during  these  heavenly  days,  and  it  is  as  hard  to  keep 
me  from  the  pen  as  the  toper  from  his  tipple. 

And  as  he  is  once  more  turning  northward, 
in  improving  health,  he  writes  (from  Bruns- 
wick, Georgia,  April  26,  1877)  : 

The  whole  air  seems  full  of  fecundity :  as  I  ride 
I'm  like  one  of  those  insects  that  are  fertilized  on  the 


154  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

wing — every  leaf  that  I  brush  against  breeds  a  poem. 
God  help  the  world  when  this  now  hatching  brood  of 
my  ephemerae  shall  take  flight  and  darken  the  air! 

On  his  birthday,  February  3,  1879,  Lanier  re- 
ceived his  appointment  as  lecturer  in  English  lit- 
erature in  Johns  Hopkins  University,  which  for 
the  first  time  in  his  life  brought  him  an  assured, 
though  small,  income.  The  last  two  years  had 
been  more  fruitful  in  poems  than  any  before,  and 
these  had  maintained  the  high  level  of  "Corn" 
and  "The  Symphony."  Fate  seemed  to  smile  at 
last,  and  he  was  clearly  ready  to  write  great  po- 
etry. "The  Marshes  of  Glynn"  proves  it.  But 
fate  had  smiled  almost  too  late ;  his  resolute  hold 
upon  life  was  about  to  fail.  When  he  received 
his  appointment  to  the  lectureship,  he  was  just 
up  from  hemorrhage  and  a  severe  illness,  and  in 
the  two  and  a  half  years  that  still  remained  to 
him  of  life,  besides  his  almost  continual  illness  he 
was  to  be  much  hindered  by  the  necessity  of 
earning  bread  for  wife  and  children,  of  whom  a 
fourth  was  born  to  him  in  August,  1880.  In  his 
letters  the  dreadful  chronicle  of  illness  runs  like 
this:  September,  1879,  "severe  illness";  Janua- 
ry, 1880,  "a  most  menacing  illness" ;  May,  1880, 
"the  final  consuming  fever  opened" ;  December, 

1880,  "came  to  the  very  door  of  death" ;  April, 

1881,  aggravated  illness  in  New  York,  wife  sum- 


Sidney  Lanier  as  Poet.  155 

moned,  and  tent  life  in  a  high  and  dry  climate 
prescribed  as  the  last  hope.  After  that  there  were 
to  be  no  more  rallies,  only  a  steady  burning  out 
till  the  end.  Death  came  September  7,  1881. 

We  are  left  alone  with  one  another  [writes  Mrs. 
Lanier].  On  the  last  night  of  the  summer  comes  a 
change.  His  love  and  immortal  will  hold  off  the  de- 
stroyer of  our  summer  yet  one  more  week  until  the 
forenoon  of  September  7,  and  then  falls  the  frost,  and 
that  unfaltering  will  renders  its  supreme  submission  to 
the  adored  will  of  God. 

Let  us  see  how  the  sick  man  had  to  work  dur- 
ing that  final  period.  In  the  summer  of  1879, 
while  sojourning  for  his  health  at  Rockingham 
Springs,  Virginia,  he  wrote  in  six  weeks  "The 
Science  of  English  Verse" ;  in  October,  1879,  ne 
gave  three  courses  of  lectures  in  girls'  schools ; 
a  little  later  there  were  the  continuous  rehearsals 
and  concerts  with  the  Peabody  Orchestra ;  then, 
beginning  in  January,  1880,  ten  weekly  lectures 
on  English  literature  (two  public  at  the  univer- 
sity, two  to  university  classes,  six  at  private 
schools).  Dr.  Ward  can  best  describe  for  us  the 
last  stage  of  the  struggle : 

The  winter  of  1880-81  brought  a  hand-to-hand  bat- 
tle for  life.  In  December  he  came  to  the  very  door 
of  death.  Before  February  he  had  essayed  the  open 
air  to  test  himself  for  his  second  university  lecture 


156  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

course.  His  improvement  ceased  on  that  first  day  of 
exposure.  Nevertheless,  by  April  he  had  gone  through 
the  twelve  lectures  (there  were  to  have  been  twenty), 
which  were  later  published  under  the  title,  "The 
English  Novel."  A  few  of  the  earlier  lectures  he 
penned  himself;  the  rest  he  was  obliged  to  dictate  to 
his  wife.  With  the  utmost  care  of  himself,  going  in 
a  closed  carriage  and  sitting  during  his  lecture,  his 
strength  was  so  exhausted  that  the  struggle  for  breath 
in  the  carriage  on  his  return  seemed  each  time  to 
threaten  the  end.  Those  who  heard  him  listened  with 
a  sort  of  fascinated  terror,  as  in  doubt  whether  the 
hoarded  breath  would  suffice  to  the  end  of  the  hour. 
It  was  in  December  of  this  winter  when  too  feeble  to 
raise  food  to  his  mouth,  with  a  fever  temperature  of 
104  degrees,  that  he  penciled  his  last  and  greatest 
poem,  "Sunrise,"  one  of  his  projected  series  of 
"Hymns  of  the  Marshes."  It  seemed  as  if  he  were 
in  fear  that  he  would  die  with  it  unuttered. 

In  the  summer  of  1881,  while  being  consumed 
by  the  final  fever  in  the  mountains  of  North  Car- 
olina, he  was  gathering  materials  for  a  book  on 
that  region,  which  he  had  been  commissioned  to 
write  in  a  railway  interest,  and  the  monthly  ad- 
vance payments  on  which  were  to  defray  ex- 
penses. The  materials  were  gathered  and  the 
book  was  shaped  in  his  mind  by  the  end  of  July, 
but  he  was  in  too  much  anguish  to  dictate,  often 
for  hours  even  to  speak;  and  so  the  book  was 
not  written. 


Sidney  Lanier  as  Poet.  157 

Our  poet  has  greatly  puzzled  the  critics. 

Lanier  has  been  likened  [Baskervill  says]  in  moral 
earnestness  and  loftiness  of  purpose  to  Milton,  in  in- 
tellectuality to  Emerson,  in  spirituality  to  Ruskin,  in 
love  of  nature  to  Wordsworth,  in  taste,  sensibility,  and 
exquisite  sense  of  beauty  to  Shelley  and  Keats,  in 
technique  to  Tennyson,  in  the  astonishing  manipula- 
tion of  his  meter  and  cadence  and  involution  to  Swin- 
burne. 

Again  Baskervill  says: 

In  these  later  poems  we  may,  it  is  true,  still  chance 
upon  a  line  fashioned  after  Poe  and  observe  a  man- 
ner imitated  from  Browning,  for  not  even  "dearest 
Keats,"  it  would  seem,  exercised  such  an  influence 
upon  him  as  these. 

But  it  is  Keats  that  I  feel  in  Lanier  more  than 
any  poet,  except  of  course  Shakespeare.  When 
Lanier  says  in  "Clover/' 

Oh, 

In  arms'  reach  here  be  Dante,  Keats,  Chopin, 
Raphael,  Lucretius,  Omar,  Angelo, 
Beethoven,  Chaucer,  Schubert,  Shakespeare,  Bach, 
And  Buddha  (sweetest  masters!  let  me  lay 
These  arms  this  once,  this  humble  once,  about 
Your  reverend  necks — the  most  containing  clasp, 
For  all  in  all,  this  world  e'er  saw!), 

he  names,  I  think,  with  the  possible  exception  of 
Chaucer  and  Schumann,  his  poets  and  musicians 


158  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

and  artists.  Keats  is  in  that  list.  Keats'  name 
occurs  oftener  in  his  poems  than  any  other  ex- 
cept Shakespeare's ;  and  the  almost  perfect  poem 
"Clover"  is  "inscribed  to  the  memory  of  John 
Keats."  In  his  love  of  nature  and  his  profound- 
ly religious  spirit  Lanier  reminds  me  of  Words- 
worth ;  but  his  attitude  toward  nature  is  not 
Wordsworth's,  nor  does  the  latter  seem  especially 
to  appeal  to  him.  The  nature-note  of  Lanier 
seems  to  me  that  of  Keats  and  Shelley.  But  it 
is  the  truest  and  sweetest  nature-note  that  I 
know  in  American  poetry.  Only  Bryant's  very 
best  nature  poems  seem  to  me  comparable,  and 
Bryant's  passion  for  nature  is  not  so  keen  as 
Lanier's.  And  there  is  a  sense  of  closeness  to, 
a  sort  of  childlike  trustful  dependence  on,  nature 
that  I  find  nowhere  else  so  marked  as  in  "A 
Ballad  of  Trees  and  the  Master,"  and  in  the 
"Hymns  of  the  Marshes."  But  while  one  may 
detect  the  subtle  influence  of  this  or  that  poet 
in  Lanier's  best  poems,  it  is  at  most  a  suggestion 
or  an  inspiration ;  for  Lanier  is  an  original  poet, 
and  in  such  poems  as  "Corn,"  "The  Marshes  of 
Glynn,"  and  "Sunrise,"  he  has  borrowed  largely 
from  no  man. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  how  Lanier  charac- 
terizes the  poets  that  especially  appeal  to  him, 
e.  g.:  "Master  Will";  "O  sweetest  Shakespeare 


Sidney  Lanier  as  Poet.  159 

sole";  "Chaucer  bright  and  Shakespeare  for  a 
king's  delight";  "old  godlike  JSschylus" ;  "large 
Lucretius";  "Lucretius  mine  (for  oh,  what  heart 
hath  loved  thee  like  to  this  that's  now  complain- 
ing?)"; "Beethoven,  sole  hymner  of  the  whole 
of  life" ;  "broad  Beethoven,  deaf  no  more,  and 
Keats  midst  of  much  talk  uplift  their  shining 
eyes" ;  "tense  Keats,  with  angels'  nerves  where 
men's  were  better";  "Tennyson,  largest  voice 
since  Milton";  "Emerson,  most  wise";  Wagner 
with  "power  to  say  the  times  in  terms  of  tone." 

Religious  aspiration  and  art  were  Lanier's 
higher  life.  The  beauty  of  holiness  was  to  him 
equally  true  when  reversed — the  holiness  of 
beauty.  The  latter  was  the  spirit  of  music  and 
poetry  becoming  dominant  within  him.  But  he 
always  found  God  in  everything,  and  his  artistic 
development  did  not  supplant  or  shake  his  reli- 
gious faith ;  he  simply  admitted  music  and  poetry 
as  copartners  with,  or  rather  constituents  of,  re- 
ligion. "Who  has  not  come  to  that  stage  of 
quiet  and  eternal  frenzy  in  which  the  beauty  of 
holiness  and  the  holiness  of  beauty  mean  one 
thing,  burn  as  one  fire,  shine  as  one  light  within 
him,  he  is  not  yet  the  great  artist."  So,  starting 
a  Hebrew,  he  came  out  a  Greek ;  but  he  did  not 
lose  the  Hebrew  in  the  Greek. 

As  art  became  part  of  his  religion,  so  to  him 


160  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

the  moral  law  was  as  binding  in  art  as  in  re- 
ligion. Time's  judgments  are  "inexorably  mor- 
al," he  maintained. 

Cannot  one  say  with  authority  to  the  young  artist 
[he  says],  whether  working  in  stone,  in  color,  in  tones, 
or  in  character-forms  of  the  novel :  So  far  from  dread- 
ing that  your  moral  purpose  will  interfere  with  your 
beautiful  creation,  go  forv/ard  in  the  clear  convictiop 
that  unless  you  are  suffused — soul  and  body,  one  might 
say — with  that  moral  purpose  which  finds  its  largest 
expression  in  love,  do  not  dare  to  meddle  with  beauty; 
unless  you  are  suffused  with  beauty,  do  not  dare  to 
meddle  with  truth  ;  unless  you  are  suffused  with  truth, 
do  not  dare  to  meddle  with  goodness?  In  a  word,  un- 
less you  are  suffused  with  truth,  wisdom,  goodness, 
and  love,  abandon  the  hope  that  the  ages  will  accept 
you  as  an  artist. 

"I  am  in  soul,  and  shall  be  in  life  and  utter- 
ance, a  great  poet,"  wrote  Lanier  to  his  wife 
soon  after  he  had  launched  in  the  sea  of  litera- 
ture. He  was  a  poet,  and  his  life  was  a  poem ; 
but  his  utterance  was  not  yet  that  of  the  great 
poets.  I  would  not  be  misunderstood.  "Sun- 
rise" has  the  authentic  note  of  the  great  poet, 
"The  Marshes  of  Glynn"  even  more  so,  but 
the  body  of  his  good  work  is  not  large  enough 
and  not  quite  great  enough,  I  think,  to  entitle 
him  to  admission  to  the  inner  circle  of  the 
supremely  great.  Keats'  remains  do  entitle 


Sidney  Lanier  as  Poet.  161 

him  to  that  rank;  Lanier's  do  not.  But  Dr. 
Ward  is  doubtless  right  in  predicting  that  he 
will  "take  his  final  rank  with  the  first  princes  of 
American  song." 

Some  of  his  poetic  work  [says  Mr.  Gilder]  was  ex- 
perimental, not  fully  and  restfully  accomplished,  though 
always  with  gleams  here  and  there  from  the  very 
"Heaven  of  Song."  As  his  methods  and  ideas  ma- 
tured, there  was  reason  to  expect  a  more  rounded, 
sustained,  and  satisfying  art.  And  every  now  and  then 
there  crystallized  in  his  intense  and  musical  mind  a 
lyric  of  such  diamond-like  strength  and  luster  that  it 
can  no  more  be  lost  from  the  diadem  of  English  song 
than  can  the  lyrics  of  Sidney  or  of  Herbert. 

What  lyrics  of  Lanier's  would  Mr.  Gilder 
have  mentioned  had  he  named  them?  I  think 
most,  perhaps  all,  of  the  following:  "Corn" 
(1874),  "The  Waving  of  the  Corn"  (1876), 
"Clover,"  most  of  it  (1876),  "Evening  Song" 
(1876),  "The  Bee"  (1877),  "The  Song  of  the 
Chattahoochee"  (1877),  "Tampa  Robins" 
(1877),  "The  Stirrup-cup"  (1877),  "A  Song  of 
the  Future"  (1878),  "The  Marshes  of  Glynn" 
(1878),  "A  Ballad  of  Trees  and  the  Master" 
(1880),  "Sunrise"  (1880). 

The  concluding  words  of  Mr.  Stedman's  let- 
ter written  for  the  Lanier  Memorial  Meeting, 
in  1888,  supplement  Mr.  Gilder's  as  an  explana- 
ii 


1 62  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

tion  of  any  inadequacy  in  Lanier's  accomplish- 
ment: 

He  conceived  of  a  method,  and  of  compositions, 
which  could  only  be  achieved  by  the  effort  of  a  life 
extended  to  man's  full  term  of  years.  The  little  that 
he  was  able  to  do  belonged  to  the  very  outset  of  a 
large  synthetic  work;  he  did  little  more  than  to  sound 
a  few  important  bars  of  his  overture.  In  this  sense  he 
died  early,  but  did  not  die  without  leaving  his  idea 
behind  him — out  of  which  something  may  yet  grow. 
He  staked  his  purpose  on  the  hope  and  chance  of  time 
for  its  execution,  but — Dis  aliter  visum! 

One  may  admit  in  Lanier  "over-luxuriance  of 
imagination"  at  times ;  that  sometimes  his  love 
of  music  led  him,  as  Mr.  Stedman  said,  "to  es- 
say in  language  effects  that  only  the  gamut  can 
render  possible" ;  but  not  even  the  powerful  au- 
thority of  Edmund  Gosse  can  convince  one  who 
has  read  and  reread  Lanier's  best  poems  till  he 
loves  them,  that  there  is  "a  painful  effort,  a 
strain  and  a  rage,"  that  even  "Corn,"  "Sunrise," 
and  "The  Marshes  of  Glynn,"  "simulate  poetic 
expression  with  extraordinary  skill.  But  of  the 
genuine  traditional  article,  not  a  trace !"  In  the 
face  of  criticism  from  so  great  a  source,  I  hum- 
bly venture  to  say  that  the  more  I  read  Lanier, 
the  longer  and  more  sympathetically  I  study 
him,  the  more  I  realize  not  only  that,  as  musi- 


Sidney  Lanier  as  Poet.  163 

cians  tell  me,  his  heavenly  gift  of  music  and  his 
technical  knowledge  of  it  "form  the  foundation 
and  framework  of  his  poetry,"  but  that  his 
poems  are  "essentially  musical,  tuneful,  and 
melodious."  Lanier  is  not  always  simple,  and 
his  greatest  poems  are  not  easy  reading,  till  one 
has  been  caught  up  into  complete  sympathy  with 
his  mood ;  then  one  feels  with  the  poet  "wonder 
unutterable,"  which  leaves  no  room  for  a  sense 
of  want  of  simplicity.  Through  frequent  read- 
ing of  his  best  poems  Lanier  has  become  one 
of  my  poets,  and  I  rise  sometimes  in  the  morn- 
ing, after  refreshing  sleep,  with  one  of  these 
poems  singing  in  my  heart  and  calling  me  to 
read  it,  just  as  do  some  poems  of  Wordsworth 
or  Keats  or  Tennyson  or  Arnold.  He  might 
have  accomplished  so  much  more,  had  the  time 
not  been  so  short,  and  had  he  not  been  so  hin- 
dered by  disease  and  the  struggle  for  bread. 
"Yet  short  as  was  his  literary  life,  and  hindered 
though  it  were,  its  fruit  will  fill  a  large  space 
in  the  garnering  of  the  poetic  art  of  our  coun- 
try." 


IX. 
RICHARD    MALCOLM   JOHNSTON. 

"GEORGIA  is  the  greatest  state  in  the  South. 
You  know  enough  of  Georgians,  however,  to 
expect  me  to  say  this."  So  wrote  a  prominent 
native  of  Middle  Georgia ;  and  though  we  might 
not  all  admit  this,  we  are  bound  to  allow  that 
the  Georgian  has  some  reason  for  his  partiality 
and  his  pride.  The  writer  said,  a  few  years  ago,1 
"It  is  certain  that  in  the  period  since  the  war 
Georgia  has  had  twice  as  many  men  of  national 
reputation  as  any  other  Southern  state" ;  and 
there  still  seems  no  good  reason  to  change  the 
sentence. 

The  Georgian  mentioned  above  sends,  from 
memory,  a  list  of  seventy-one  names  of  Geor- 
gians who  have  been  more  or  less  prominent 
as  writers.  These  include  some  of  Georgia's 
great  jurists,  statesmen,  and  orators,  as  well  as 
several  who,  perhaps,  like  Paul  H.  Hayne,  real- 
ly belong  to  other  states.  There  are  some,  too, 
whom  doubtless  only  Georgia  partiality  would 

Written  in  1892. 
(T64) 


RICHARD    MALCOLM    JOHNSTON. 


Richard  Malcolm  Johnston.  165 

consider  eminent;  but,  after  all  allowances  are 
made,  the  list  is  a  very  respectable  one.  It  con- 
tains such  names  as  the  story  writers  and  humor- 
ists, Judge  Longstreet,  W.  T.  Thompson  ("Ma- 
jor Jones'  Courtship"),  Richard  Malcolm  John- 
ston, Joel  Chandler  Harris,  Maurice  Thompson, 
H.  S.  Edwards,  Will  N.  Harben,  F.  R.  Gould- 
ing  ("Young  Marooners")  ;  the  poets,  Richard 
Henry  Wilde  ("My  Life  Is  Like  the  Summer 
Rose"),  F.  C.  Ticknor,  Sidney  Lanier,  Maurice 
Thompson  (already  mentioned),  Will  H.  Hayne, 
and  Frank  L.  Stanton;  the  historian,  Charles  C. 
Jones,  Jr. ;  the  political  writers  and  statesmen, 
A.  H.  Stephens,  Robert  Toombs,  B.  H.  Hill, 
James  C.  Brown;  religious  writers  and  pulpit 
orators,  Bishops  Pierce  and  Haygood,  and  Dr. 
A.  A.  Lipscomb ;  journalists  and  orators,  H.  W. 
Grady  and  John  Temple  Graves ;  humorist,  "Bill 
Arp." 

Georgia  is  the  only  Sbuthern  state  that  we 
speak  of  as  having  a  literature  of  its  own.  Sev- 
eral other  states  have  furnished  a  respectable 
number  of  writers,  but  we  do  not  speak  of  Vir- 
ginia literature  or  Tennessee  literature  as  we 
do  of  "Georgia  literature."  Various  attempts 
have  been  made  to  explain  this  phenomenon. 
Colonel  Richard  Malcolm  Johnston  seems  to  con- 
sider one  great  secret  of  it  the  fact  that,  in  Mid- 


166  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

die  Georgia,  the  richer  and  the  poorer  classes 
come  closer  together  than  elsewhere.  In  the 
"Preface"  to  "Mr.  Absalom  Billingslea  and  Other 
Georgia  Folks,"  he  says : 

In  this  region,  very  fertile  and  almost  universally 
salubrious,  perhaps  there  was  as  little  social  distinction 
among  its  inhabitants  as  among  those  of  any  other  in 
the  South.  The  men  of  culture  and  those  of  wealth, 
as  a  general  thing,  were  neighbors  of  the  uncultured 
and  those  with  small  property  around  them,  and  all 
were  friends  with  one  another ;  not  only  trusting  and 
trusted,  but  helpful,  fond,  often  affectionate.  Among 
such  a  people — every  one  conscious  of  the  freedom  of 
his  manhood — whatever  was  original  or  individual  must 
find  unhindered  development  that  will  be  multifold, 
according  to  particular  gifts,  circumstances,  and  op- 
portunities. 

Such  a  state  of  society  ought  to  produce,  as  it 
did,  an  unusual  number  of  men  eminent  both  in 
Church  and  State ;  but  why  did  it  produce  a  lit- 
erature? "Because  the  material  was  here,"  says 
Mrs.  Sophia  Bledsoe  Herrick,  "and  the  writers 
were  an  integral  part  of  the  life  they  undertook 
to  depict,  in  a  sense  true  of  perhaps  no  other  re- 
gion of  the  South."  Perhaps  this  explanation 
does  not  fully  account  for  the  rise  of  such  a 
school  of  literature ;  but  it  does  explain  why  the 
attempt  to  depict  this  phase  of  life,  once  made, 
should  succeed. 


Richard  Malcolm  Johnston.  167 

About  1840,  or  soon  after,  there  was  a  prom- 
ise of  a  growth  of  humorous  literature  in  several 
Southern  states — North  Carolina,  Alabama,  and 
Tennessee,  as  well  as  Georgia;  but  an  arrest  of 
development  occurred  in  all  the  rest,  whereas 
Richard  Malcolm  Johnston,  at  seventy  years  of 
age,  wrote  Georgia  sketches  that  were  lineal  de- 
scendants of,  though  more  finished  than,  "Geor- 
gia Scenes." 

Richard  Malcolm  Johnston  was  born  in  Han- 
cock county,  Ga.,  March  8,  1822.  His  great- 
grandfather was  an  Episcopal  clergyman  in  Vir- 
ginia, but  emigrated  to  Georgia.  Hence  our  au- 
thor is  a  Georgian,  of  the  third  generation.  The 
ancestors  of  his  mother,  Catherine  Davenport, 
came  also  from  Virginia ;  indeed,  that  part  of 
Middle  Georgia  where  Mr.  Johnston  was  born 
and  brought  up  was  settled  largely  by  Virgin- 
ians. It  is  a  belt  about  one  hundred  miles  long, 
from  east  to  west,  and  sixty  miles  broad,  with 
Augusta  as  the  metropolis. 

Richard  Malcolm  attended,  first,  "the  old  field 
school"  of  his  neighborhood ;  and  every  one  who 
has  read  "The  Goose  Pond  School,"  or  "How  Mr. 
Bill  Williams  Took  the  Responsibility,"  will  feel 
sure  that  he  has  been  allowed  to  witness  some  of 
the  scenes  of  this  primitive  educational  establish- 
ment. In  1830  his  father  moved,  first  to  Craw- 


168  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

fordville,  and  then  to  Powelton,  the  scene  of  the 
"Dukesborough  Tales."  Powelton,  though  a 
place  of  not  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty 
inhabitants,  had  a  flourishing  school,  evidently 
the  original  of  that  described  as  taught  by  Mr. 
George  Overton  in  "Old  Friends  and  New," 
and  that  of  Lucius  Woodbridge  in  "Old  Mark 
Langston."  Here  young  Richard  Malcolm  was 
prepared  for  college.  He  had  his  first  love 
scrape  while  at  this  school,  having  fallen,  at  the 
age  of  thirteen,  madly  in  love  with  a  young  lady 
of  twenty-six,  one  of  his  teachers.  He  ought 
not  to  be  blamed  for  this,  for  if  a  good,  im- 
pressible little  boy  has  a  good-looking  lady 
teacher,  twice  his  own  age,  she  is  bound  to  be 
his  first  flame.  This  episode  gave  him  the  sug- 
gestion for  his  story,  the  "Early  Majority  of 
Mr.  Thomas  Watts."  His  second  love  affair  is 
important  only  from  the  fact  that  this  time  his 
sweetheart  was  a  girl  of  fifteen,  which  shows 
that  he  was  getting  to  be  a  normal  kind  of  boy. 
He  went  from  the  Powelton  Academy  to  Mercer 
University,  where  he  was  graduated  in  1841. 
He  taught  two  years,  and  we  have,  doubtless, 
some  of  his  own  experience,  not  only  in  the  ac- 
count of  George  Overtoil's  and  Lucius  Wood- 
bridge's  schools,  mentioned  above,  but  also  in 
"New  Discipline  at  Rock  Spring."  At  the  end 


Richard  Malcolm  Johnston.  169 

of  this  time  he  began  the  practice  of  law  with 
Linton  Stephens,  a  younger  brother  of  Alexander 
Stephens. 

In  1844,  when  Mr.  Johnston  was  twenty-two, 
he  was  married  to  Miss  Frances  Mansfield,  of 
Hancock  county,  then  a  young  lady  of  fifteen, 
who  for  more  than  fifty  years  continued  to  help 
and  cheer  him.  The  fine  old  lady,  whom  I  met 
in  her  own  home,  might  very  well  have  been  the 
original  of  the  Lucy  Parkinson  whom  George 
Overton  marries  in  "Old  Friends  and  New." 
For  some  years  Colonel  Johnston  practiced  at 
the  bar,  and  we  have  every  right  to  suppose 
that  in  the  various  stories,  in  which  lawyers  are 
prominent  characters,  we  have  bits  of  his  own 
experience  in  the  courts.  Mr.  Elam  Sandidge, 
whom  we  first  meet  in  "Judge  Mike's  Court," 
of  the  "Dukesborough  Tales,"  then  again  in '"Old 
Friends  and  New/'  and  finally  in  "Moll  and  Vir- 
gil," bears  every  mark  of  being  a  genuine  type. 
Just  such  a  man  Mr.  Johnston  must  have  known 
— the  shrewd,  hard  lawyer,  to  whom  both  the 
judge  and  the  sheriff  owed  their  elevation,  and 
who  consequently  owned  them  both.  In  1857 
he  was  unanimously  elected  president  of  his 
alma  mater,  but  declined,  and  one  week  later 
accepted  the  professorship  of  belles-lettres  in 
the  University  of  Georgia.  According  to  Mrs. 


170  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

S.  B.  Herrick's  sketch,  in  the  Century,  June, 
1888,  he  was  offered,  almost  at  the  same  time, 
the  judgeship  of  the  northern  circuit.  The 
professorship  he  held  till  1862,  and  then  re- 
signed, and  opened  a  boys'  school,  at  his  plan- 
tation, near  Sparta.  There  he  was  a  close  neigh- 
bor of  Bishop  George  F.  Pierce,  to  whom  he 
dedicates  his  "Ogeechee  Cross  Firings."  This 
school  was  very  flourishing,  but  in  1867  a  daugh- 
ter, just  grown  up,  died,  and  the  tender-hearted 
man  found  the  place  no  longer  endurable ;  so 
giving,  up  a  school  of  sixty  boys,  of  whom  for- 
ty followed  him,  he  removed  to  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Baltimore,  where  he  taught  for  some 
years. 

Mr.  Charles  W.  Coleman,  Jr.,  in  his  article 
on  "The  Recent  Movement  in  Southern  Litera- 
ture," Harper's,  May,  1887,  says : 

During  his  career  as  a  lawyer,  practicing  in  five  or 
six  adjoining  counties,  much  of  his  time  was  passed 
at  county-seat  taverns,  where  numbers  of  lawyers 
would  gather  together  and  relate  their  observations  of 
cracker  life,  their  personal  experiences  among  the  coun- 
trymen of  Middle  Georgia,  courthouse  scenes,  and  the 
like.  These  tavern  stories,  together  with  his  own  in- 
timate acquaintance  with  the  people  in  the  old-field 
schools,  and  as  a  lawyer,  supplied  a  rich  mine  of  mat- 
ter for  literary  work,  which,  as  yet,  it  did  not  occur 
to  him  to  use.  Indeed,  it  was  after  the  war,  when  he 


Richard  Malcolm  Johnston.  171 

was  forty-five  years  old,  that  he  first  became  aware  of 
the  power  to  make  literature  a  career. 

According-  to  Mrs.  Herrick,  his  first  story  ap- 
peared under  the  nom  de  plume,  "Philemon 
Perch,"  in  the  Southern  Magazine,  a  periodical, 
largely  eclectic,  which  was  published  in  Balti- 
more. The  merit  of  his  work  received  almost 
immediate  recognition.  No  one  was  so  surprised 
as  its  author  at  'the  success  of  this,  his  first  lit- 
erary venture.  Other  stories  followed,  but  it 
did  not  seem  to  occur  to  Colonel  Johnston  to 
seek  a  wider  field  for  his  work,  or  to  think  of 
his  writing  as  a  source  of  income,  for  he  had 
contributed  the  early  stories  without  asking  re- 
muneration. In  1879,  however,  his  dear  and 
valued  friend,  Sidney  Lanier,  persuaded  him  to 
submit  a  story  to  Scribner's  Magazine,  now  the 
Century.  When  this  was  accepted,  Mr.  Lanier's 
delight  was  unbounded,  both  because  the  writer 
was  his  friend,  and  because  the  life  so  vividly 
depicted  was  sweet  in  his  memory. 

This  story,  "Mr.  Neelus  Peeler's  Conditions," 
forms  the  point  from  which  Colonel  Johnston 
dated  his  literary  career.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact 
that  an  author  who  has  obtained  such  wide  rec- 
ognition for  the  freshness,  broadness,  and  humor 
of  his  work  should  have  been  over  fifty  years  of 


172  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

age  before  he  attempted  it,  and  that  he  should 
date  his  literary  life  from  his  fifty-ninth  year. 

Colonel  Johnston,  as  he  appeared  on  his  visit 
to  Nashville,  in  1889,  and  as  the  writer  saw  him 
in  his  own  home  three  years  later,  was  a  man 
whom  one  likes,  instinctively,  at  first  sight.  He 
was  about  six  feet  in  height,  of  good  figure, 
with  no  stoop  at  all,  though  then  in  his  seven- 
tieth year ;  hair  white  as  snow,  but  thick  and 
close  cut ;  florid  face,  and  the  kindliest  blue  eye 
to  be  found  in  or  outside  of  the  state  of  Georgia. 
Xo  one  who  has  read  his  stories,  or  ever  looked 
into  that  gentle  eye,  could  help  feeling  that  any 
tale  of  distress  would  surely  bring  a  tear  to  his 
eyes  and  send  his  hand  into  his  pocket.  There 
may  be  a  man  easier  to  get  acquainted  with,  but 
nobody  who  knew  him  would  believe  it.  The 
old  man,  who  loved  so  ardently  the  scenes  and 
people  of  his  boyhood  and  young  manhood, 
loved  his  friends,  of  course,  and  not  least  those 
whom  his  writings  had  won  for  him.  The  kind 
treatment  accorded  him  on  his  visit  to  Nash- 
ville won  his  heart.  He  never  failed  to  send 
messages  in  his  letters  to  those  who  showed  him 
attention ;  and  that  hospitable  city — hospitable 
especially  to  authors — received  from  him  the 
same  unstinted  praise  that  Maurice  Thompson 
and  Thomas  Nelson  Page  alwavs  gave  it. 


Richard  Malcolm  Johnston.  173 

He  led  a  simple,  quiet  life — not  in  affluence 
-nor  in  poverty — devoting  himself  to  his  writing, 
while  his  two  youngest  daughters  taught,  assist- 
ed and  encouraged  in  everything  by  his  faithful 
and  devoted  wife.  This  was  the  household  then ; 
but  there  was  one  married  daughter  living  in 
New  Jersey,  and  one  son  in  Rome,  preparing  to 
become  a  Catholic  priest.  One,  at  least,  of  his 
daughters  inherited  her  father's  literary  facul- 
ty, and  has  contributed  poems,  and,  perhaps, 
other  work  to  the  magazines. 

The  first  story  of  Colonel  Johnston's  was  "The 
Goose  Pond  School,"  which  introduces  the  series 
of  "Dukesborough  Tales,"  and  is  a  better  story 
than  "Mr.  Neelus  Peeler's  Conditions,"  with 
which  he  gained  an  introduction  to  the  Century 
Magazine.  This,  and  the  other  stories  which  he 
contributed  to  the  Southern  Magazine,  formed 
the  first  series  of  the  "Dukesborough  Tales," 
and,  when  published  in  book  form,  won  the  ap- 
proval of  a  New  York  editor,  as  well  as  the 
enthusiastic  appreciation  of  Sidney  Lanier.  The 
remaining  stories  of  the  series,  which  now  form 
part  of  the  volume,  published  by  Harper  and 
Brothers,  in  their  Franklin  Square  Library,  ap- 
peared first  in  Northern  magazines.  Of  the  three 
volumes  of  short  stories  which  he  published, 
the  first,  the  "Dukesborough  Tales,"  is  the  best. 


174  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

The  field  was  then  new,  which  is  an  important 
consideration  where  the  range  of  character  is 
necessarily  limited.  These  stories  impress  one, 
not  as  written  for  pay  or  for  reputation,  but  as 
spontaneous — written  simply  because  the  author 
felt  that  the  life  they  depicted  was  worth  de- 
scribing. Individual  stories,  in  the  other  collec- 
tions, are  as  good ;  two  are,  perhaps,  the  best  of 
all  his  stories — "Mr.  Absalom  Billingslea,"  and 
''Moll  and  Virgil."  Indeed,  "Moll  and  Virgil" 
must  be  ranked  with  "Free  Joe  and  the  Rest  of 
the  "World,"  which  is  certainly  Joel  Chandler 
Harris's  best  story.  But.  as  a  collection,  "The 
Dukesborough  Tales"  are  the  richest  in  humor 
and  incident,  and  will  be  the  longest  lived. 

All  the  short  stories — /.  e.,  "The  Dukesbor- 
ough Tales,"  "Mr.  Absalom  Billingslea  and  Oth- 
er Georgia  Folks,"  "The  Primes  and  Their 
Neighbors,"  and  "Ogeechee  Cross  Firings" — are 
of  the  same  general  character,  describe  the  same 
Middle  Georgia  ante-bellum  life,  .and  impress  the 
reader  as  being  essentially  reminiscences ;  hence 
these  may  all  be  discussed  together.  In  these 
stories  every  class  is  faithfully  described,  with 
some  caricature  here  and  there,  of  course,  but  of 
an  innocent  kind,  rather  a  laughing  with  than 
a  laughing  at.  It  is  the  same  kind  of  caricature 
that  is  found  in  the  "Georgia  Scenes"  and 


Richard  Malcolm  Johnston.  -175 

"Major  Jones'  Courtship" ;  and  Georgia  people 
of  the  time  described  would  probably  not  have 
distinctly  recognized  or  acknowledged  their  own 
portraits,  but  would,  as  it  were,  have  taken  the 
author  to  be  "just  in  fun."  But  all  the  same, 
under  this  cover,  he  described  Georgia  country 
and  village  life,  and  no  one  doubts  the  essential 
truth  of  it.  A  Middle  Georgia  village  or  _neigh- 
borhood,  fifty  years  ago,  furnished  only  a  few 
types  of  character,  but  we  have  them  all  here, 
sketched  to  the  life.  There's  Mr.  Bill  Williams, 
best  sustained  of  all  the  characters,  the  garru- 
lous country  youth,  whose  ambition  is  a  career, 
as  clerk,  in  the  village  store ;  the  old  field  school- 
masters, Meadows  and  Lorriby,  as  well  as  the 
village  teachers,  Overton  and  Woodbridge;  the 
country  parson,  represented  by  Brother  Bulling- 
ton  (Baptist),  or  Brother  Swinger  (Methodist)  ; 
the  good  old  sisters,  Catlin,  of  the  Methodist 
Church,  and  Tolliver,  of  the  Baptist,  who  love 
and  respect  each  other,  and  differ  only  on  the 
doctrines  of  election  and  free  grace:  various 
types  of  deacons ;  the  pompous  militia  colonel, 
Moses  Grice;  the  neighborhood  oracle,  as  Mr. 
Archie  Kittrell ;  the  neighborhood  gossip,  Miss 
Priscilla  Mattox ;  the  shrewd  and  unscrupulous 
lawyer  like  Sandidge ;  or  the  young,  ambitious, 
high-minded  opponent  of  Sandidge,  Mr.  Mobly; 


176  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

the  close-fisted,  note-shaving,  grasping,  mean 
country  capitalist,  the  chief  man  of  the  village, 
president  of  the  school  board,  whom  everybody 
fears  and  everybody  hates,  Mr.  Duke;  and  last- 
ly, the  comely  widows,  like  Mrs.  Ashby,  Mrs. 
Malvina  Hodge,  or  Mrs.  Brinkley;  the  old 
maids,  Miss  Georgiana  Pea  or  Miss  Angelina 
Spouter ;  or  those  blooming,  peach-cheeked,  hap- 
py, healthy  Georgia  maidens,  like  Lucy  Parkin- 
son or  Betsey  Ann  Aery.  These  might  be  a 
very  staicl  and  uninteresting  set,  seen  by  other 
eyes  than  those  of  a  humorist,  like  Colonel 
Johnston,  but  it  is  very  certain  that,  as  de- 
scribed by  him,  they  have  a  perennial  interest. 

Of  course  courting  and  marrying  occupy  a 
considerable  share  of  attention  in  these  sketches, 
and  Colonel  Johnston  does  not  confine  himself 
to  the  romance  of  young  love.  Widowers  and 
widows  come  in,  as  is  right  and  natural,  for 
their  fair  share,  and  for  a  humorist,  widowers, 
if  not  widows,  offer  finer  subjects  than  those 
young  men  and  maidens  who  love  and  marry  for 
the  first  time. 

Mr.  Singleton  Hooks  had  been  a  great  dancer 
in  his  youth,  and  could  surpass  the  best  in  "sling- 
ing a  foot  in  a  quintillion,  when  his  dander  were 
up.  the  fiddle  chuned  accordin*  to  the  scale,  and 
his  pardner  ekal  to  her  business."  But  he  had 


Richard  Malcolm  Johnston.  177 

seen  "they  were  a  jumpin'-ofr"  place  to  sech  as 
that,  and  had  the  jedgment  to  git  out  o'  the  way 
o'  the  wrath  to  come."  He  was  now  in  middle 
life,  with  iron-gray  hair  and  solemn  port,  a  jus- 
tice of  the  peace,  a  deacon  in  the  church,  and 
even  an  occasional  exhorter.  But  his.  wife  died ! 
And  wonderful  are  the  ways  of  widowers.  He 
turned,  after  a  brief  while,  his  back  upon  the 
graveyard,  and  tried  to  present,  first,  a  resigned, 
soon  a  cheerful,  face  to  the  world  outside  of  it. 
It  began  to  be  remarked  that  his  conversation, 
general  carriage,  even  his  person,  were  brighter 
than  for  years.  For  now  he  dressed  and  brushed 
himself  with  much  care  ;  and  before  long,  instead 
of  bestowing  monitory  looks  on  jests  and  other 
frivolities  of  the  young  and  the  gay,  he  not  only 
smiled  forgivingly,  but  occasionally,  with  his 
own  mouth,  put  forth  a  harmless  anecdote,  at 
which  he  laughed  as  cordially  as  he  knew  how, 
and  seemed  gratified  when  others  enjoyed  it. 
He  got  more  Sunday  clothes  and  wore  them 
oftener,  a  new  hat  and  a  new  cane,  and  found 
most  consolation  in  the  society  of  ladies,  espe- 
cially those  under  twenty.  "I  feel,"  he  said,  to 
one  of  them,  "a'most  a  right  young  man  jes' 
grown,  sech  is  my  health,  and  my  strength,  and 
my  sperrits."  But  that  was  not  all.  Miss  Sally 
Cash,  an  elderly  unmarried  maiden,  of  fair  prop- 

12 


178  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

erty,  who,  on  the  re-advent  into  society  of  two 
marrying  men,  the  widowers  Hooks  and  Tuggle, 
had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  "may  be  it  were 
His  will  for  her  not  to  git  old,  thes  by  herself," 
and  had  made  her  appearance*  at  meeting,  in  a 
new  red  frock  and  green  calash,  and  new  pink 
parasol,  and  new  white  crane-tail  fan,  and  new 
striped  ribbons,  and  new  cheeks  that  just  blazed 
like  a  peach — Miss  Sally  Cash  gave  a  party  and 
invited  Mr.  Hooks,  among  others.  Lively  and 
jokey  as  Mr.  Hooks  had  become,  no  one  could 
have  anticipated  what  happened.  He  purchased 
the  shiniest  silk  stockings  and  the  sleekest  pair 
of  pumps,  and  the  longest,  widest,  stripedest  silk 
cravat,  which  was  to  be  tied  in  the  most  ap- 
proved Augusta  style.  "Them  feet  and  them 
legs,"  he  remarked  to  some  gentlemen  and  ladies 
at  the  party,  "them  legs  and  them  feet  'pear  like 
they  forgot,  till  here  lately,  what  they  was  made 
for,  but  my  intentions  is,  before  they  git  much 
older,  to  convince  'em  o'  their  ric'lection."  And 
when  the  call,  "Choose  pardners,"  rang  out,  Mr. 
Hooks  seized  the  hand  of  Miss  Susan  Ann  Tug- 
gle and  led  her  out.  And  such  dancing!  His 
legs  made  up  for  all  the  years  of  repression. 
Susan  Ann  whispered  to  him,  "You  are  the  best 
partner  I  ever  danced  with" ;  and  afterwards 
married  him.  Now  it  was  the  marrying  spirit 


Richard  Malcolm  Johnston.  179 

in  him  that  did  all  that;  for,  after  he  got  Susan 
Ann,  everything  "swayed  down  peaceable,"  and 
the  brethren  forgave  him  for  dancing,  when 
Susan  Ann  gave  in  her  beautiful  experience  at 
meeting,  and  it  was  given  out  that  he  would  not 
dance  any  more. 

A  life  so  simple  and  narrow  does  not  offer 
much  variety  of  course,  especially  in  the  way  of 
amusements  or  recreations,  but  the  interest  of 
an  event  depends  largely  upon  whose  eyes  see  it, 
and  Colonel  Johnston  reviews  the  scenes  of  his 
boyhood  and  young  manhood  with  glasses  that 
are  delightfully  colored,  both  with  the  enthusi- 
asm and  large  patriotism  of  youth,  and  the  ideal- 
ism of  long  absence.  Add  to  this  his  unfailing 
humor,  and  we  have  a  sufficient  guarantee  that 
the  life  described  will  not  seem  either  barren  or 
dry.  First  among  the  rustic  recreations  de- 
scribed is  the  monthly  meeting  at  the  neighbor- 
hood church  or  the  annual  camp  meeting.  Now, 
though  religious  meetings  may  not  be  intended 
to  be  recreations,  as  they  were  among  the  ancient 
Greeks,  there  is  no  denying  the  fact  that  they 
do  form  one  of  the  chief  recreations  of  country 
people,  especially  of  young  men  and  maidens. 
And,  of  course,  our  author  doesn't  forget  to 
touch  upon  the  chief  intellectual  stimulus  of  a 
country  neighborhood,  in  quiet  times,  the  per- 


180  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

petual  controversy  over  the  doctrines  of  bap- 
tism, by  immersion  or  by  sprinkling,  over  elec- 
tion and  free  grace.  But  it  would  be  a  mistake 
to  suppose  that  Colonel  Johnston  describes  all 
this  irreverently,  as  the  following  reflection  will 
prove : 

When  a  man,  far  away  from  such  scenes,  both  in 
space  and  in  years,  begins  to  talk  about  them,  he  is 
prone  to  indulge  too  fondly.  He  cannot  at  least  but 
love  to  muse,  amid  other  recollections,  on  those  long, 
so  long,  ago  camp-meeting  nights.  Religiously  in- 
clined, earnestly  so  indeed,  but  not  taking  part  in  the 
exciting  scenes  which  so  many,  with  varying  purposes, 
gathered  there  to  witness,  when  the  bugle  would  sound 
the  call  for  silence  and  repose,  when  even  all  mourn- 
ers' wailings  would  be  hushed,  it  was  a  pleasant  thing 
to  take  a  rustic  chair,  and,  leaning  against  a  post  of 
the  tent,  sit  and  listen  to  the  night  music  then  rising 
in  the  woods,  and  dream  and  dream  and  dream  of 
hopes  and  destinies  for  this  life  and  the  life  eternal. 

The  discipline  and  exercises  in  the  respective 
schools  of  Mr.  Meadows  and  Mr.  Lorriby  were 
doubtless  not  funny  to  the  boys  and  girls  at 
the  time,  but.  as  described  in  "The  Goose  Pond 
School,"  and  "How  Mr.  Bill  Williams  Took  the 
Responsibility,''  they  are  the  most  mirth-provok- 
ing of  comedies,  however  often  read.  Then, 
there  is  the  muster  day  of  the  battalion,  with  its 
invariable  finish  in  the  way  of  fights — /.  e.,  en- 


Richard  Malcolm  Johnston.  181 

counters  meant  generally  not  to  wipe  out  a 
grudge  or  an  affront,  but  as  a  trial  of  superior 
strength,  agility,  or  endurance.  Who  does  not 
remember  the  contest  between  Bob  Durham  and 
Bill  Stalling,  in  the  "Georgia  Scenes,"  which 
proved  the  crowning  delight  of  Ransy  Sniffle's 
life?  Such  encounters  we  have  described  in 
"The  Various  Languages  of  Billy  Moon,"  the 
famous  struggle  in  which  Mr.  Bill  Williams  vin- 
dicated his  manhood  against  Colonel  Mose  Grice 
("King  William  and  His  Armies"),  and  the 
fifth  combat  between  Bob  Hackett  and  Bill  Giles, 
as  described  in  "The  Humors  of  Jacky  Bundle," 
the  outcome  of  which  was  thus  related  by  a  wit- 
ness: 

Never  see  a  pootier  fight ;  but  Bob  had  to  give  in 
this  time.  That  set  Bill  two  in  five,  and  as  he  ris  off'n 
Bob,  he  told  him  the  next  turn  would  fetch  him  even 
'ith  him.  Bob  laughed,  he  did,  bunged  up,  as  he  were, 
and  he  said :  "All  right,  Bill,  we'll  see."  Then  they 
went  to  Jim  Simmon's  kyart,  to  take  a  drink,  which 
Bill,  he  'sisted  on  payin'  the  expense. 

The  circus  was  a  very  rare  occurrence  in  a 
Georgia  village  fifty  years  ago,  of  course,  but  it 
did  appear,  even  there,  sometimes,  and  furnished 
our  author  with  material  for  one  of  his  best 
sketches,  in  which  two  of  our  old  friends,  Colo- 
nel Grice  and  Mr.  Bill  Williams,  materially  as- 


182  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

sist  the  clown  in  his  efforts  to  amuse  the  crowd. 
Trials  in  court  are,  in  rural  districts,  a  chief 
source  both  of  recreation  and  of  instruction, 
and  one  of  the  best  sketches  in  the  "Dukesbor- 
ough  Tales"  is  that  describing  Judge  Mike's 
Court,  where  old  Sandidge  and  young  Mobly 
have  their  first  regular  legal  encounter,  and  the 
incompetent  Judge  Mike,  pushed  to  the  wall  by 
Mobly 's  bold  and  clever  management,  takes  out 
his  rage  and  spite  on  the  innocent  and  unoffend- 
ing Allen  Thigpen.  The  sketch  is  permanently 
valuable  as  describing  an  important  and  now, 
happily,  obsolete  phase  of  the  judicial  economy 
of  Georgia. 

One  of  the  shorter  stories,  now  published  as 
a  separate  novelette,  "Ogeechee  Cross  Firings," 
is  dedicated  "To  the  memory  of  Right  Rev. 
George  Foster  Pierce,  who,  during  many  years, 
was  the  author's  close  neighbor  and  friend, 
whose  love  of  the  humorous,  both  as  a  hearer 
and  a  rehearser,  whose  marvelous  personal 
beauty,  whose  devout,  innocent  life,  and  whose 
unrivaled  eloquence  made  him,  of  all  men,  in  his 
native  state,  during  his  time,  the  one  most  ad- 
mired, loved,  and  revered."  And  that  reminds 
me  of  Colonel  Johnston's  remark  one  summer, 
in  Baltimore:  'The  grandest  man  I  ever  knew, 
as  a  man  and  as  a  Christian,  was  George  Pierce." 


Richard  Malcolm  Johnston.  183 

To  the  question  as  to  whether  Bishop  Pierce 
was  not  the  original  of  Henry  Doster,  in  this 
sketch,  he  replied: 

Yes,  I  had  George  Pierce  in  my  mind  when  I  was 
sketching  "Henry  Doster."  All  the  other  characters 
are  imaginary,  although,  of  course,  I  have  seen  the 
elements  out  of  which  I  constructed  my  concrete,  here 
and  there,  among  various  old-time  originals. 

Colonel  Johnston  was  a  humorist  of  recog- 
nized power,  but  he  could  never  have  succeeded 
in  sketching  Georgia  provincial  life  as  he  did 
if  he  had  not  loved  the  old  times  so  well.  "The 
Dukesborough  Tales"  are  dedicated  "To  mem- 
ories of  the  old  times — the  grim  and  rude,  but 
hearty,  old  times  in  Georgia" ;  and  "The  Primes 
and  Their  Neighbors"  inscribed  "To  memories  of 
Powelton,  my  native  village."  That  is  the  secret 
of  it  all.  All  his  stories  and  novels  are  essentially 
reminiscences  of  this  old  Georgia  provincial  life, 
which  he  has  both  idealized  and  caricatured,  but 
out  of  which  he  has  wrought,  with  a  hand  of 
love,  a  picture  that  is  of  permanent  value  and  in- 
terest, and  made,  doubtless,  the  truest  history  of 
Middle  Georgia  yet  written.  He  has  cultivated 
his  field  more  assiduously  than  the  rest  of  the 
Southern  writers,  except  Miss  Murfree,  and,  big 
or  little,  it  is  his  field.  The  dialect  could  hardly 
be  more  faithfully  rendered.  The  best  of  these 


184  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

stories  will  never  lose  their  value.  They  may  be 
more  read  or  less  read,  as  time  passes,  but  they 
have  permanent  worth  as  describing  with  essen- 
tial accuracy,  a  state  of  society,  humble  though 
it  be,  that  has  passed  away.  Some  of  them,  I 
verily  believe,  have  enough  genuine  humor  to 
float  them  for  some  time  yet  down  the  great 
tide  of  time,  in  which  most  books  sink.  These 
bear,  as  well  as  the  very  best  sketches  of  the 
"Georgia  Scenes,"  the  test  of  repeated  rereading. 
It  might  be  well,  some  day,  to  have  the  very  best 
of  them  collected  into  a  single  volume;  and  such 
a  collection  would,  in  all  likelihood,  long  retain 
its  popularity.  Different  persons  would  make 
somewhat  different  selections,  but  most  of  the 
following  would  certainly  be  in  any  collection : 
From  "The  Dukesborough  Tales,"  the  series  in 
which  Mr.  Bill  Williams  figures  prominently, 
viz.,  "How  Mr.  Bill  Williams  Took  the  Re- 
sponsibility," "The  Pursuit  of  Mr.  Adiel  Slack," 
"Investigations  of  Mr.  Jonas  Lively,"  "Old 
Friends  and  New,"  "The  Expensive  Treat  of 
Colonel  Moses  Grice,"  and  "King  William  and 
His  Armies,"  also  "The  Goose  Pond  School," 
"The  Various  Languages  of  Billy  Moon,"  and 
"Judge  Mike's  Court";  from  "Mr.  Absalom 
Billingslea  and  Other  Georgia  Folks,"  "Mr.  Ab- 
salom Billingslea,"  "The  Brief  Embarrassment 


Richard  Malcolm  Johnston.  185 

of  Mr.  Iverson  Blount,"  "The  Meditations  of  Mr. 
Archie  Kittrell,"  "The  Wimpy  Adoptions,"  and 
"Moll  and  Virgil" ;  from  "The  Primes  and  Their 
Neighbors,"  "The  Experiment  of  Miss  Sally 
Cash,"  and  "The  Pursuits  of  the  Martyns." 

Perhaps  one  of  the  best  proofs  of  the  merit 
of  the  novel,  "Old  Mark  Langston,"  is  that  it 
reads  better,  on  the  whole,  the  second  time  than 
the  first.  I  was  about  to  pronounce  it  equal  to 
the  promise  of  some  of  the  short  stories,  but  the 
denouement  prevented.  It  is  not  possible  that  a 
Georgia  village  could  have  been  the  scene  of  the 
unraveling  of  such  a  plot  of  avarice,  meanness, 
cruelty,  deceit,  hypocrisy,  lying,  desertion,  vil- 
lainy— involving  so  many  people  in  so  many 
places,  and  extending  over  so  long  a  period. 
But  one  character,  at  least,  is  sketched  with  a 
touch  that  will  make  most  judicious  readers 
overlook  or  forget  what  they  did  not  like  in  oth- 
ers. This  is  old  Jesse  Lines.  There  is  nothing 
to  admire  in  him,  and,  doubtless,  he  was  not 
meant  to  be  the  strong  point  of  the  work,  but 
he  will  be  remembered  when  all  else  in  the  book 
is  forgotten,  though  his  daughter,  Doolana,  is  a 
noble  girl,  and  Mr.  Duke  stands  out  strongly  in 
all  his  meanness.  Jesse  Lines'  objection  to  the 
Bible  as  an  "onfriendly  book"  will  give  a  good 
idea  of  the  man  and  his  talk : 


i86  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

It  may  not  be  onfriendly  to  you;  but  to  me — well, 
as  fur  as  I  can  go  to  say  about  that  book,  it  ain't  what 
I  call  friendly — not  to  me  it  ain't.  I've  tuck  her  up, 
time  and  time  ag'in,  and  tried  to  read  her — as  fur  as 
I  can  understan'  her,  and  which  they's  a  heap  in  her 
I  can't  understan',  ner  make  heads  ner  tails  of — but 
which,  somehow,  she  always  seems  onfriendly  to  me 
and  ag'in  me.  I  ain't  no  great  reader,  nohow,  as  you 
know,  'special  sence  my  'fliction.  But  when  I  does 
read,  I  wants  to  read  in  a  book  which,  ef  she  can't 
be  'special  friendly,  and  pinted  friendly,  ain't,  at  least, 
ow-friendly;  or,  ef  it  actilly  ain't  a-meanin'  o'  me  by 
name,  and  abusein'  of  me,  yit  is  constant  a-hintin' 
round  me — and  which  I  were  never  a  man  that  had  to 
be  kicked  down-stars  befo'  I  could  take  a  bint.  Now 
you  jes'  read  out  loud,  whar  you  is,  a  while,  and  less 
see  how  she  goes. 

"A  righteous  man  hateth  lying ;  but  a  wicked  man  is 
loathsome  and  cometh  to  shame." 

Thar!  [cried  he,  in  undisguised  resentment].  Didn't 
I  tell  you  so?  Shet  her  up.  For  God-a-mighty's  sake, 
Doolana,  shet  her  up ! 

Mrs.  Herrick  says  Colonel  Johnston,  speaking 
of  Doolana  Lines,  remarked : 

I  meant  to  make  her  mean,  like  her  father,  but  be- 
fore I  had  written  fifty  lines  about  her,  she  just  turned 
herself  out  of  my  hands,  and  there  she  was  before  me. 
She  seemed  to  say :  "Don't  make  me  mean.  I  am  a 
woman.  You  never  knew  a  woman  mean  like  that." 
And  I  had  to  stop.  I  just  could  not  do  it.  I  cannot, 
somehow,  be  rough  with  any  woman ;  they  always  seem 


Richard  Malcolm  Johnston.  187 

to    reproach   me.      I   cannot   forget   the   reverence    due 
their  femininity. 

That  is  doubtless  the  reason  why  the  Widow 
Guthrie,  who  gives  her  name  to  Colonel  John- 
ston's second  complete  novel,  did  not  turn  out 
to  be  a  female  edition  of  Kinsey  Duke,  as  she 
seemed,  at  first,  to  promise  to  become.  This 
book,  which  is  intended  to  describe  the  life  of 
the  upper  class  in  a  Middle  Georgia  village,  has 
experienced  the  fate  of  other  books  of  this  kind, 
written  by  authors  who  had  won  success  with 
short  stories  and  sketches  of  mountaineers, 
crackers,  etc. ;  as,  e.  g.,  Miss  Murfree's  "Where 
the  Battle  Was  Fought"  and  Mr.  Page's  "On 
New  Found  River."  The  characters,  lacking 
the  quaintness  and  originality  of  pioneer  and 
backwoodsman,  fail  to  enlist  our  full  sympathy. 
Even  Colonel  Johnston's  humor  seems  handi- 
capped, and  while  little  or  no  fault  is  to  be 
found  with  some  of  the  characters — as,  e.  g., 
Duncan  Guthrie's  wife — we  never  get  very  well 
acquainted  with  her  or  them.  The  book  will 
hardly  live  as  long  as  "Old  Mark  Langston." 

Colonel  Johnston  was  the  author,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  William  Hand  Browne,  of  a  "Biog- 
raphy of  Alexander  Stephens"  and  a  "History 
of  English  Literature."  He  also  prepared  for 
the  press  "Studies,  Literary  and  Social,"  which 


i88  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

were  issued  in  three  small  volumes.  Much  of 
Colonel  Johnston's  time  was  spent  in  the  study 
of  English  and  European  literature.  On  the 
former  he  delivered  as  many  as  sixty  lectures 
before  the  Peabody  Institute,  Baltimore,  and  a 
considerable  number  elsewhere. 


MATTHEW   ARNOLD. 


X. 
MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 

IF  a  reason  must  be  given  for  a  study  of 
Matthew  Arnold's  works  at  this  time  (1898),  one 
might  say,  perhaps  first  of  all,  that  the  "Letters" 
have  not  only  thrown  new  light  upon  Arnold's 
personality,  but  have  made  clearer  than  ever  be- 
fore the  task  he  had  set  himself,  and  especially  the 
spirit  in  which  he  gave  himself  to  that  task.  Ar- 
nold knew  himself  better,  of  course,  than  any- 
body else  knew  him ;  and  in  his  familiar  letters, 
especially  those  to  his  mother  and  sisters — letters 
meant  only  for  the  family  circle,  and  free  from 
a  shadow  of  suspicion  that  a  wider  audience  was 
ever  in  mind — we  have  his  own  estimate  of  the 
worth  of  his  work,  and  his  own  statement  of  the 
hindrances  that  hampered  his  literary  effort. 

In  this  paper  the  object  has  been,  so  far  as 
possible,  to  let  Arnold,  by  means  of  his  "Let- 
ters," state  his  own  case ;  and  the  same  purpose 
has  determined  the  extensive  quotations  made 
from  his  works.  Those  who  would  get  the  most 
out  of  the  "Letters"  must  consider  them  in  the 
light  of  a  self-revelation,  not  as  a  collection 

(189) 


190  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

from  which  Arnold's  opinions  of  other  men  and 
other  men's  works  may  be  learned.  In  bulk 
Arnold's  twenty-one  volumes  constitute  a  suffi- 
ciently large  output ;  and  in  prose,  at  least,  we 
all  feel,  perhaps,  that  he  found  adequate  expres- 
sion of  himself.  He  was  a  great  literary  critic, 
doubtless  the  greatest  and  safest  that  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking race  has  yet  produced,  and  though 
hindered  much  by  outward  circumstances,  he 
yet  found  opportunity  to  deliver  his  message. 
If  things  had  been  different,  we  should  doubt- 
less have  had  more  of  those  incomparable  intro- 
ductions to  the  poets ;  and  we  shall  always  re- 
gret that  he  did  not  leave  the  evidently  intend- 
ed further  essay  on  Shelley.  Still  we  have  his 
''secret"  and  his  "method"  of  literary  criticism 
in  the  collected  edition  of  his  critical  works  pre- 
pared with  his  own  hand.  He  was  greatly  hin- 
dered, it  is  true,  by  the  fact  that  he  had  to  give 
his  main  effort  during  his  whole  life  to  the  ex- 
acting duties  of  a  school  inspectorship,  in  order 
to  win  bread  for  his  family. 

Qualified  by  nature  and  training  for  the  highest 
honors  and  successes  which  the  world  can  give,  he 
spent  his  life  in  a  long  round  of  unremunerative 
drudgery,  working  even  beyond  the  limits  of  his 
strength  for  those  whom  he  loved,  and  never,  by  word 
or  sign,  betraying  even  a  consciousness  of  that  dull 


Matthew  Arnold.  191 

indifference  to  his  gifts  and  services  which  stirred  the 
fruitless  indignation  of  his  friends.1 

He  rose  superior  to  these  hindrances,  I  think, 
in  the  matter  of  the  prose  expression  of  himself ; 
but  it  was  his  poetic  faculty  that  suffered,  and 
it  is  there  that  the  world  has  cause  chiefly  to 
regret  that  he  was  so  hampered.  He  himself 
told  F.  W.  H.  Myers  that  "his  official  work, 
though  it  did  not  check  his  prose  writing, 
checked  his  poetry."  If  any  one,  considering 
what  his  great  contemporaries,  Tennyson  and 
Browning,  achieved,  be  inclined  to  criticise  Ar- 
nold, let  him  blame  if  he  can  after  reading  the 
following : 

Indeed,  if  the  opinion  of  the  general  public  about 
my  poems  were  the  same  as  that  of  the  leading  literary 
men,  I  should  make  more  money  by  them  than  I  do. 
But,  more  than  this,  I  should  gain  the  stimulus  nec- 
essary to  enable  me  to  produce  my  best — all  that  I 
have  in  me,  whatever  that  may  be — to  produce  which 
is  no  light  matter  with  an  existence  so  hampered  as 
mine  is.  People  do  not  understand  what  a  temptation 
there  is,  if  you  cannot  bear  anything  not  very  good,  to 
transfer  your  operations  to  a  region  where  form  is 
everything.  Perfection  of  a  certain  kind  may  there 
be  attained,  or  at  least  approached,  without  knocking 
yourself  to  pieces,  but  to  attain  or  approach  perfection 
in  the  region  of  thought  and  feeling,  and  to  unite  this 

1  Preface  to  "Letters,"  by  G.  W.  E.  Russell. 


192  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

with  perfection  of  form,  demands  not  merely  an  effort 
and  a  labor,  but  an  actual  tearing  of  one's  self  to 
pieces,  which  one  does  not  readily  consent  to  (although 
one  is  sometimes  forced  to  it),  unless  one  can  devote 
one's  whole  life  to  poetry.  Wordsworth  could  give  his 
whole  life  to  it;  Shelley  and  Byron  both  could,  and 
were,  besides,  driven  by  their  demon  to  do  it.  Tenny- 
son, a  far  inferior  natural  power  to  either  of  the  three, 
can ;  but  of  the  moderns  Goethe  is  the  only  one,  I  be- 
lieve, of  those  who  had  an  existence  assujettie  who 
has  thrown  himself  with  a  great  result  into  poetry. 
And  even  he  felt  what  I  say,  for  he  could  no  doubt 
have  done  more  poetically  had  he  been  freer;  but  it 
is  not  so  light  a  matter,  when  you  have  other  grave 
claims  on  your  powers,  to  submit  voluntarily  to  the 
exhaustion  of  the  best  poetical  production  in  a  time 
like  this.  Goethe  speaks  somewhere  of  the  endless  mat- 
ters on  which  he  had  employed  himself,  and  says  that 
with  the  labor  he  had  given  to  them  he  might  have 
produced  half  a  dozen  more  good  tragedies ;  "but  to 
produce  these,"  he  says,  "I  must  have  been  sehr  ser- 
rissen."  It  is  only  in  the  best  poetical  epochs  (such 
as  the  Elizabethan)  that  you  can  descend  into  yourself 
and  produce  the  best  of  your  thought  and  feeling  nat- 
urally and  without  an  overwhelming,  and  in  some  de- 
gree morbid,  effort ;  for  then  all  the  people  around 
you  are  more  or  less  doing  the  same  thing.  It  is  nat- 
ural, it  is  the  bent  of  the  time,  to  do  it;  its  being  the 
bent  of  the  time,  indeed,  is  what  makes  the  time  a 
poetical  one.2 

I  have  quoted  this  passage  at  length,  because 
"Tetters,"  I.,  72  f. 


Matthew  Arnold.  193 

it  is  the  most  important  reference  in  the  "Let- 
ters" to  the  hindrances  which  clogged  Arnold's 
poetic  effort,  and  because  it  is  an  admirable  gen- 
eral statement,  to  be  supported  by  the  passages 
which  follow  here. 

I  am  now  at  the  work  [he  writes  at  forty-one]  I 
dislike  most  in  the  world :  looking  over  and  marking 
examination  papers.  I  was  stopped  last  week  by  my 
eyes,  and  the  last  year  or  two  these  sixty  papers  a 
day  of  close  handwriting  to  read  have,  I  am  sorry  to 
say,  much  tried  my  eyes  for  the  time.  They  soon  re- 
cover, however,  and  no  reading  ever  seems  to  hurt 
them.  At  present  I  can  do  nothing  after  my  papers 
are  done  but  write  the  indispensable  letters  for  that 
day's  post.3 

The  next  year  he  writes  to  Lady  de  Rothschild 
as  follows: 

I  must  go  back  to  my  charming  occupation  of  hear- 
ing students  give  lessons.  Here  is  my  programme  for 
this  afternoon  :  Avalanches — The  Steam  Engine — The 
Thames — India  Rubber — Bricks — The  Battle  of  Poic- 
tiers — Subtraction — The  Reindeer — The  Gunpowder 
Plot — The  Jordan.  Alluring,  is  it  not?  Twenty  min- 
utes each,  and  the  days  of  one's  life  are  only  three- 
score years  and  ten.* 

Three  months  later  he  writes : 

I  am  being  driven  furious  by  seven  hundred  closely 

3"Letters,"  I.,  207.    *Ibid.,  I.,  281. 
13 


194  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

written  grammar  papers   which   I   have   to    look   over, 
and  an  obstinate  cold  in  the  head  at  the  same  time.5 

Again,  to  Lady  de  Rothschild,  still  two  vears 
later : 

I  have  [he  says]  in  the  next  two  months,  besides 
my  usual  school  work,  to  look  over  thirty  sacred 
poems,  the  same  number  of  Newdigates  (the  Oxford 
prize  poem),  ten  Latin  poems,  and  several  English  es- 
says ;  to  give  a  lecture  on  Celtic  poetry,  of  which,  as 
the  Saturday  Review  truly  says,  I  know  nothing;  to 
write  a  Latin  speech,  and  to  report  on  the  secondary 
instruction  of  the  continent  of  Europe.6 

The  everlasting  grind  of  examination  papers 
becomes  exceedingly  pathetic  on  one  occasion. 
He  writes  thus  to  his  sister,  Mrs.  Forster,  Janu- 
ary 4,  1868: 

Poor  little  Basil  [his  infant  son]  died  this  afternoon, 
a  few  minutes  before  one  o'clock.  I  sat  up  with  him 
till  four  this  morning,  looking  over  my  papers,  that 
Flu  and  Mrs.  Tuffin  might  get  some  sleep ;  and  at  the 
end  of  every  second  paper  I  went  to  him,  stroked  his 
poor  twitching  hand  and  kissed  his  soft  warm  cheek; 
and  though  he  never  slept,  he  seemed  easy,  and  hardly 
moaned  at  all.  This  morning  about  six,  after  I  had 
gone  to  bed,  he  became  more  restless ;  about  eleven  he 
had  another  convulsion;  from  that  time  he  sank.7 

5"Letters,"  L,  285.     'Ibid.,   I.,  381.     'Ibid.,  I.,  443. 


Matthew  Arnold.  195 

On  his  birthday,  that  same  year  (December  24, 
1868),  Arnold  writes  to  his  mother: 

Tell  Edward  I  divide  my  papers  (second-year  gram- 
mar) through  every  day,  taking  in  Christmas  day,  Sat- 
urdays, and  Sundays.  In  this  way  I  bring  them  down 
to  twenty-five  a  day,  which  I  can  do  without  the  strain 
on  my  head  and  eyes  which  forty  a  day,  or — as  I  used 
often  to  make  it  in  old  times  by  delaying  at  first — 
eighty  or  ninety  a  day,  would  be.  I  am  up  at  six,  and 
work  at  the  preface  to  my  "Culture  and  Anarchy'' 
essays ;  work  again  at  this,  and  read,  between  breakfast 
and  luncheon.  Play  racquets  and  walk  between  lunch- 
eon and  four ;  from  four  to  seven  look  over  my  twenty- 
five  papers,  and  then  after  dinner  write  my  letters  and 
read  a  little.8 

Passages  of  similar  tenor  might  be  multiplied 
almost  indefinitely  from  the  "Letters" ;  but  these 
will  suffice,  perhaps,  to  indicate  not  only  how  he 
was  hampered  in  his  literary  effort,  but  also  how 
conscientious  he  was  in  the  performance  of  his 
drudgery  tasks,  how  industrious  in  reading  as 
well  as  in  writing. 

In  such  a  paper,  it  is  necessary  to  ignore  al- 
most entirely  a  large  part  of  Arnold's  work,  and 
to  restrict  attention  to  what  is  of  universal  and 
permanent  value.  As  to  what  is  of  permanent 
value,  doubtless  everybody  will  agree.  If  Ar- 

8  "Letters,"  I.,  467. 


196  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

nold  lives,  it  will  be  as  a  critic  of  literature  and 
as  a  poet.  His  school  reports  were,  and  are,  ex- 
ceedingly valuable;  but  such  things  are  not  lit- 
erature, even  when  written  by  an  Arnold.  As 
the  world  rolls  on  and  times  change,  old  ques- 
tions lose  interest,  and  new  problems  present 
themselves  in  religion,  in  social  life,  in  politics; 
the  treatment  of  such  questions,  except  in  their 
permanent  aspects,  cannot  be  literature,  and,  in 
the  long  run,  only  literature  survives,  except  for 
the  specialist.  This  remark  does  not  apply,  how- 
ever, to  "Culture  and  Anarchy" ;  at  least  so 
much  of  it  as  treats  of  the  distinction  between 
"Hebraism"  and  "Hellenism."  Arnold  himself 
rightly  felt  that  the  distinction  thus  drawn  was 
of  more  than  transient  value.  "The  chapters  on 
'Hellenism'  and  'Hebraism,' "  he  wrote  to  his 
mother,  "are,  in  the  main,  I  am  convinced,  so 
true  that  they  will  form  a  kind  of  center  for 
English  thought  and  speculation  on  the  matters 
treated  in  them."  One  is  tempted  to  make  an 
exception  again  in  favor  of  "Literature  and 
Dogma,"  if  only  for  the  great  aphorism,  "Con- 
duct is  three-fourths  of  life,"  so  beautifully  illus- 
trated there.  But  that  aphorism  is  everywhere 
in  Arnold's  works,  and,  better  still,  is  on  its 
winged  way  among  men. 


Matthew  Arnold.  197 

THE  CRITIC. 

An  enthusiastic  student  of  English  literature 
remarked  to  me  once  that  Matthew  Arnold  will 
live  by  his  poetry;  that  the  ideas  and  ideals  for 
which  he  stood  in  his  criticism  will  pass  into  the 
general  atmosphere  of  culture,  and  it  will  be  for- 
gotten by  most  that  we  owe  them  to  Arnold. 
The  remark  was  made  with  the  highest  appre- 
ciation of  Arnold's  influence  as  a  critic,  and 
my  friend  did  not  know,  I  am  sure,  that  he  was 
almost  quoting  Frederic  Harrison.  "We  can 
have  little  doubt  now,"  says  Harrison,  "when  so 
much  of  Arnold's  prose  work  in  criticism  has 
been  accepted  as  standard  opinion,  and  so  much 
of  his  prose  work  in  controversy  has  lost  its 
savor,  that  it  is  his  poetry  which  will  be  longest 
remembered,  and  there  his  finest  vein  was 
reached."9  Many  were  doubtless  long  before 
agreed  with  Andrew  Lang  in  the  general  prop- 
osition that  his  poems  were  "by  far  his  most 
important  and  most  permanent  contribution  to 
literature."  To  have  one's  ideas  become  a  part 
of  the  literary  atmosphere  is  to  have  accom- 
plished a  great  work,  even  if  one's  self  be  for- 
gotten ;  and  Arnold  himself  would,  I  am  sure, 
have  been  satisfied  to  believe  that  this  would  be 

^Nineteenth   Century,   March,   1896. 


198  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

the  fate  of  his  criticism.  Writing  to  one  of  his 
sisters  about  his  article  on  "The  Burials  Bill," 
he  said:  "It  is  a  seed  sown  in  the  thoughts  of 
the  young  and  fair-minded,  the  effect  of  which 
will  be  gradual  but  persistent.  In  all  I  write  this 
is  the  sort  of  effect  I  aim  at."1  And  to  his 
mother  he  wrote :  "To  be  less  and  less  personal 
in  one's  desires  and  working  is  the  great  matter, 
and  this,  too,  I  feel,  I  am  glad  to  say,  more 
deeply  than  I  did."1  Again  to  the  same:  "One 
can  only  get  one's  self  really  accepted  by  men 
by  making  one's  self  forgotten  in  the  people  and 
doctrines  one  recommends." 

Men  may  cease  to  read  the  essays  on  Words- 
worth, Milton,  Keats,  and  Byron ;  but  we  shall 
read  these  and  other  great  poets  more,  and  ap- 
preciate them  better,  because  of  Arnold's  essays. 
For  one  of  these — Wordsworth — Arnold,  more 
than  any  other  person,  vindicated  his  rightful 
position  in  English  letters,  and  with  that  little 
volume  of  superb  selections  made  it  easy  for  the 
elect  to  come  under  Wordsworth's  spell.  And  for 
Keats,  who  does  not  feel  that  Arnold  has  said 
•the  supreme  word  ?  Shelley  had  written  of  Keats : 

Till  the  Future  dares 

Forget  the  Past,  his  fate  and  fame  shall  be 
An  echo  and  a  light  unto  eternity. 

""Letters,"  II.,  155.    "Ibid.,  I,  400. 


Matthew  Arnold.  199 

Tennyson  had  said,  "Keats,  with  his  high  spir- 
itual vision,  would  have  been,  if  he  had  lived, 
the  greatest  of  us  all";  but  Arnold  wrote,  "He 
is  with  Shakespeare!"  When  a  critic  like  Ar- 
nold says  that,  he  compels  us  to  read  Keats; 
and  when  we  read  Keats,  if  we  have  any  poetry 
in  our  souls,  we  are  Keats'  forever. 

I  say  the  thoughts  of  the  essays  may  pass  into 
the  general  literary  atmosphere,  and  it  may  be- 
come no  longer  necessary  to  read  them,  but  I 
cannot  imagine  this  of  the  essay  on  "The  Study 
of  Poetry."  I  can  hardly  imagine  even  the  cul- 
tivated public  not  needing  to  read  and  reread 
this  masterly,  simple  treatise.  It  ought  to  be 
read  by  young  people  once  a  year.  Frederic 
Harrison  says  of  it: 

Arnold's  piece  on  "The  Study  of  Poetry,"  written 
as  an  introduction  to  the  collected  "English  Poets," 
should  be  preserved  in  our  literature  as  the  norma,  or 
canon,  of  right  opinion  about  poetry,  as  we  preserve 
the  standard  coins  in  the  Pyx,  or  the  standard  yard 
measure  in  the  old  Jewel-house  at  Westminster.12 

12Ibid.  In  a  footnote  Harrison  adds :  "This  does 
not  include  obiter  dicta  in  his  familiar  letters.  A  great 
critic,  like  the  Pope,  is  infallible  only  when  he  is 
speaking  ex  cathedra,  on  matters  of  faith."  One  thinks 
at  once  of  Tennyson,  to  whom  Arnold  never  was  quite 
just  in  the  "Letters" — e.  g.,  I.,  278:  "I  do  not  think 


2OO  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

"Every  critic/'  says  Arnold,  in  the  essay  on 
"The  Function  of  Criticism,"  "should  try  and 
possess  one  great  literature  at  least  besides  his 
own,  and  the  more  unlike  his  own,  the  better." 
That  was  the  minimum  requirement.  Very  sim- 
ilar is  his  answer  to  the  objection  to  studying 
other  languages  on  the  ground  that  we  have 
enough  to  do  to  know  our  own:  "It  is  true,  as 
Goethe  said,  that  no  man  who  knows  only  his 
own  language  knows  even  that."  Of  Scherer, 
Arnold  said :  "He  knows  thoroughly  the  lan- 
guage and  literature  of  England,  Italy,  Ger- 
many, as  well  as  France."  His  own  outfit  was 
perhaps  even  more  complete.  He  possessed,  as 

Tennyson  a  great  and  powerful  spirit  in  any  line." 
(Compare  also  I.,  72,  147,  280.)  Such  obiter  dicta 
must  be  offset  by  Arnold's  remark  to  Hallam  Tenny- 
son :  "Your  father  has  been  our  most  popular  poet  for 
forty  years,  and,  on  the  whole,  he  has  deserved  it." 
One  is  even  more  startled,  perhaps,  at  this  epistolary 
verdict  on  Thackeray :  ''He  is  not,  to  my  thinking,  a 
great  writer."  ("Letters,"  I.,  247.)  These  judgments 
would  certainly  have  been  modified  if  given  ex  cathe- 
dra; and  when  one  remembers  the  concluding  para- 
graph of  the  essay  on  '"Joubert,"  one  cannot  but  hope 
that  Arnold  would  have  qualified  this  remark  concern- 
ing the  great  Whig  historian :  "Macaulay  is  to  me  un- 
interesting, mainly,  I  think,  from  a  dash  of  intellectual 
vulgarity  which  I  find  in  all  his  performance."  ("Let- 
ters," II.,  I55-) 


Matthew  Arnold.  201 

the  basis  of  his  culture,  an  extraordinarily  thor- 
ough knowledge  and  an  exquisite  appreciation 
of  Greek  literature,  especially  Greek  poetry, 
knowing  as  few  men  have  done  Homer,  Soph- 
ocles, yEschylus,  and  Pindar,  besides  Plato, 
Epictetus,  and  Marcus  Aurelius.  In  Latin  he 
was  well  versed,  and  familiar  especially  with 
Lucretius  and  Virgil.  In  Hebrew  he  had  some 
knowledge  of  the  original,  and  was  steeped  in 
the  literature  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments, 
including  the  Septuagint,  the  Vulgate  (for  which 
as  literature  he  had  the  profoundest  sympathy 
and  admiration),  and  the  best  literature  of  me- 
diaeval Christianity.  Of  modern  literatures  he 
knew  best,  of  course,  the  French.  Indeed,  it 
might  be  said,  with  a  large  measure  of  truth, 
that  he  learned  his  art  of  criticism  from  the 
French.  Next  to  French  he  knew  best  the  Ger- 
man literature,  and  was  familiar  with  the  re- 
sults of  German  scholarship,  at  least  in  biblical 
lines.  With  Italian  there  are  indications  that  he 
was  at  least  fairly  well  acquainted,  and  he  knew 
Dante  well.  In  English  literature  he  was,  of 
course,  widely  and  deeply  read — more  so  in  the 
older  literature  than  the  contemporary  —  and 
in  all  the  greatest  poetry  a  master  without  a 
rival. 

With  Arnold,  "culture  is  reading."    From  his 


2O2  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

writings  we  may  learn  his  "doctrine,"  and  from 
his  "Letters"  we  may  gather  his  "method"  as  to 
reading.  "Desultory  reading,"  he  writes  to  one 
of  his  sisters,13  "is  a  mere  anodyne ;  regular 
reading,  well  chosen,  is  restoring  and  edifying." 
"My  great  desire  in  education,"  he  says  in  one 
of  his  letters,14  "is  to  get  a  few  good  books  uni- 
versally taught  and  read.  Twenty,  I  think,  is 
about  all  I  would  have  in  the  direct  teaching  of 
the  young,  and  to  be  learned  as  text-books. 
Young  people  may  read  for  themselves  collater- 
ally as  much  as  they  like."  Again,  in  his  six- 
tieth year,  he  writes:15 

The  importance  of  reading — not  slight  stuff  to  get 
through  the  time,  but  the  best  that  has  been  written — 
forces  itself  upon  me  more  and  more  every  year  I 
live ;  it  is  living  in  good  company,  the  best  company, 
and  people  are  generally  quite  keen  enough,  or  too 
keen,  about  doing  that ;  yet  they  will  not  do  it  in  the 
simplest  and  most  innocent  manner  by  reading.  How- 
ever, if  I  live  to  be  eighty,  I  shall  probably  be  the 
only  person  left  in  England  who  reads  anything  but 
newspapers  and  scientific  publications. 

He  advises  his  sister,  Mrs.  Forster,16  "to  read 
something  of  Burke's  every  year,"  because 
Burke  "treats  politics  with  his  thought  and  imag- 

13"Letters,"  II.,  127.  14Ibid.,  II.,  164.  ™Ibid.,  II.,  227. 
"Ibid.,  L,  249. 


Matthew  Arnold.  203 

ination" ;   because   he   is   "our   greatest   English 
prose  writer." 

Arnold's  own  "method,"  or  practice,  in  read- 
ing is  easy  to  discover.  Of  Gray  he  said:  "He 
lived  with  the  great  poets ;  he  lived,  above  all, 
with  the  Greeks,  through  perpetually  studying 
and  enjoying  them."  And  Arnold  himself  lived 
constantly,  from  youth  to  age,  with  the  great 
Greeks.  In  the  second  sonnet,  in  reply  to  the 
question,  "Who  prop,  thou  ask'st,  in  these  bad 
days,  my  mind  ?"  he  says  that  he  is  occupied  with 
Homer,  "clearest-souled  of  men" ;  with  Epicte- 
tus,  "whose  friendship  I  not  long  since  won"; 
and  especially  with  Sophocles, 

Who  saw  life  steadily,  and  saw  it  whole. 

In  1849  ne  writes :  "I  have  within  this  year 
gone  through  all  Homer's  works  and  all  those 
ascribed  to  him."  And  he  is  reading,  at  the 
same  time,  biographies  of  Byron,  Scott,  Napo- 
leon, Goethe,  Burns.  The  next  year  he  is  read- 
ing "Goethe's  letters,  Bacon,  Pindar,  Sophocles, 
Milton,  Thomas  a  Kempis,  and  'Ecclesiasticus.' '' 
In  1857  he  writes:  "What  I  learn  in  studying 
Sophocles  for  my  present  purpose  is,  or  seems 
to  me,  wonderful."  In  1860  he  is  "reading  a 
great  deal  in  the  'Iliad'  again."  In  1861  he  gives 
his  three  lectures  on  "Translating  Homer,"  say- 


2O4  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

ing  at  the  outset  that  "for  one  or  two  years  the 
works  of  Homer  were  seldom  out  of  his  hands." 
In  his  fortieth  year  we  find  him  at  night,  after 
inspecting  schools,  reading  "about  a  hundred 
lines  of  'Odyssey'  to  keep  himself  from  putre- 
faction" ;  and  in  his  sixty-third  year  he  uses  the 
"Odyssey"  to  take  the  taste  of  Daudet's  "Sapho" 
out  of  his  mouth.  The  very  last  reference  in  the 
"Letters"  to  Greek  literature  represents  him  as 
"reading  five  pages  of  Greek  anthology  every 
day." 

As  to  other  literature  besides  the  classical,  the 
"Letters"  confirm  the  impression  that  he  kept 
in  his  general  reading  largely  to  the  great  au- 
thors. His  first  youthful  enthusiasm  in  French 
was  George  Sand,  "the  greatest  spirit  in  our 
European  world  from  the  time  that  Goethe  de- 
parted."1 Later  his  favorite  French  authors 
were  Sainte-Beuve,  Voltaire,  Joubert,  Senan- 
cour,  Maurice  de  Guerin,  Renan,  Scherer.  His 
friend  and  master  in  criticism  was  Sainte- 
Beuve,  "the  first  critic  of  our  time."  The  circle 
of  French  writers  at  Paris,  to  which  Sainte- 
Beuve  and  Scherer  belonged,  he  thought  "per- 
haps the  most  truly  cultivated  in  the  world." 
The  three  Germans  whom  he  knewr  best  were 

""Letters,"  II.,  152. 


Matthew  Arnold.  205 

doubtless  Lessing,  Heine,  and  Goethe.  The  last 
was  to  him  "the  greatest  poet  of  modern  times, 
the  greatest  critic  of  all  times."  Goethe  and 
Wordsworth,  he  says  in  a  letter,  "are  the  two 
moderns  I  most  care  for."  Heine  was  "the  most 
important  successor  and  continuator  of  Goethe 
in  Goethe's  most  important  line  of  activity" — 
namely,  as  "a  soldier  in  the  war  of  liberation  of 
humanity";  and  so  he  was  "in  the  European 
poetry  of  that  quarter  of  a  century  which  fol- 
lows the  death  of  Goethe  incomparably  the  most 
important  figure." 

In  English  prose,  Arnold's  favorite  authors 
seem  to  have  been  Burke,  Newman,  and  possibly 
Emerson.  For  Newman's  great  qualities  he  had 
the  profoundest  admiration,  as  of  "a  man  who 
alone  in  Oxford  of  his  generation,  alone  of  many 
generations,  conveyed  to  us  in  his  genius  that 
same  charm,  that  same  ineffable  sentiment,  which 
this  exquisite  place  itself  conveys."  Of  English 
poets  it  were  but  necessary  to  name  all  the  great- 
est ;  with  all  these  Arnold  "lived."  But  it  would 
be  safe,  I  think,  to  say  that  the  works  and  au- 
thors which  he  loved  most,  studied  longest,  and 
absorbed  most  completely  were  the  Bible,  Ho- 
mer, Sophocles,  Goethe,  Wordsworth,  and  Sainte- 
Beuve. 

Arnold's   "doctrine   of   studies"   is   contained, 


206  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

he  himself  said,18  in  his  lecture  on  "Literature 
and  Science."  His  "doctrine  of  criticism"  is 
found  perhaps  most  succinctly  stated  in  his  es- 
say on  "The  Function  of  Criticism  at  the  Present 
Time,"  which  serves  as  a  general  introduction 
to  his  two  volumes  of  "Essays  in  Criticism."  His 
"doctrine  of  style"  is  best  given  in  the  essay  on 
''The  Influence  of  Academies." 

The  business  of  the  critical  power  is,  he  says 
in  the  essay  on  "The  Function  of  Criticism  at 
the  Present  Time,"  "in  all  branches  of  knowl- 
edge, theology,  philosophy,  history,  art,  science, 
to  see  the  object  as  in  itself  it  really  is."  True 
criticism  "tends  to  make  the  best  ideas  prevail." 
"Its  business  is  simply  to  know  the  best  that  is 
known  and  thought  in  the  world,  and  by  in  its 
turn  making  this  known  to  create  a  current  of 
new  and  fresh  ideas."  "Presently  these  new 
ideas  reach  society,  the  touch  of  truth  is  the 
touch  of  life,  and  there  is  a  stir  and  growth 
everywhere ;  out  of  this  stir  and  growth  come 
the  creative  epochs  of  literature." 

Criticism's  best  spiritual  work  is  "to  keep  mai. 
from  a  self-satisfaction  which  is  retarding  and 
vulgarizing,  to  lead  him  toward  perfection  by 
making  his  mind  dwell  upon  what  is  excellent  in 

""Letters,"  II.,  253. 


Matthew  Arnold.      .  207 

itself,  and  the  absolute  beauty  and  fitness  of 
things."  Why  has  it  so  little  accomplished  this 
in  England?  Because  it  has  not  kept  in  the 
purely  intellectual  sphere,  has  been  so  practical, 
polemical,  controversial.  "Without  a  disinter- 
ested treatment  of  things,  truth  and  the  highest 
culture  are  out  of  the  question."  The  duty  of 
criticism  is  "to  be  perpetually  dissatisfied"  with 
everything  which  falls  short  of  "a  high  and  per- 
fect ideal."  Criticism  "must  maintain  its  inde- 
pendence of  the  practical  spirit  and  its  aims." 
"Let  us  betake  ourselves  more,"  says  Arnold,  "to 
the  serener  life  of  the  mind  and  spirit." 

The  critic  is  to  help  us  enlarge  and  complete 
ourselves  by  bringing  in  the  elements  in  which 
we  are  deficient,  not  as  Carlyle,  by  "preaching 
earnestness  to  a  nation  which  has  plenty  of  it  by 
nature."1  The  English-speaking  race  is  distin- 
guished by  energy  and  honesty,  and  has  a  sense 
for  conduct;  the  French  by  a  sense  for  social 
life  and  manners ;  the  Germans  by  a  sense  for 
knowledge;  the  Greeks  had  a  sense  for  beauty, 
for  social  life  and  manners,  for  knowledge,  but 
not,  in  the  highest  degree,  for  conduct.  By 
studying  the  points  wherein  we  are  weak  and  the 
elements  wherein  other  peoples  are  strong,  and 

""Letters,"  II.,  222. 


2o8  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

bringing  in  those  qualities  in  which  we  are  not 
strong,  we  shall  complete  and  develop  ourselves. 

The  great  business  of  the  critic  is  the  spread 
of  culture.  What  Arnold  meant  by  culture 
may  be  understood,  perhaps,  from  the  following 
extracts  from  "Sweetness  and  Light":  Culture 
is  "a  desire  after  the  things  of  the  mind  simply 
for  their  own  sakes  and  for  the  pleasure  of  see- 
ing them  as  they  are."  "Culture  is  an  harmoni- 
ous expansion  of  all  the  powers  which  make  the 
beauty  and  worth  of  human  nature."  "It  is  in 
endless  additions  to  itself,  in  the  endless  expan- 
sion of  its  powers,  in  endless  growth  in  wisdom 
and  beauty,  that  the  spirit  of  the  human  race 
finds  its  ideal."  Culture  is  "the  study  and  pur- 
suit of  perfection."  Culture  "places  human  per- 
fection in  an  internal  condition,  in  the  growth 
and  predominance  of  our  humanity  proper,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  our  animality."  "Culture  seeks 
to  make  the  best  that  has  been  thought  and 
known  in  the  world  current  everywhere."  Cul- 
ture's aim  is  "to  make  reason  and  the  will  of  God 
prevail." 

"Culture  is  reading,"  said  Arnold;  and  he 
"looked  to  literature  for  gradually  opening  and 
softening  men's  minds."  He  looked  to  literature 
even  to  interpret  the  Bible  afresh,  and  to  put 
religion  on  a  sounder  basis.  He  considered  Lord 


Matthew  Arnold.  209 

Salisbury  a  dangerous  man,  "chiefly  from  his 
want  of  any  true  sense  and  experience  of  liter- 
ature and  its  beneficent  function.  Religion  he 
knows  and  physical  science  he  knows,  but  the 
immense  work  between  the  two,  which  is  for  lit- 
erature to  accomplish,  he  knows  nothing  of."2 

The  critic's  chief  function,  then,  is  to  be  a 
guide  to  the  best  literature.  He  is  to  cultivate 
in  himself,  and  stimulate  in  others,  a  conscience 
in  letters,  to  induce  the  attitude  which  Sainte- 
Beuve  claims  for  France.  "In  France  the  first 
consideration  for  us  is  not  whether  we  are 
amused  and  pleased  by  a  work  of  art  or  mind, 
nor  is  it  whether  we  are  touched  by  it.  What 
we  seek  above  all  to  learn  is  whether-  ^ve  are 
right  in  being  amused  with  it,  and  in  applauding 
it,  and  in  being  moved  by  it."  To  be  such  a 
guide  as  Arnold  demands,  the  critic  must  be,  as 
Sainte-Beuve  was,  "a  man  of  extraordinary  deli- 
cacy of  tact  and  judgment  in  literature";  and 
"perfect,  so  far  as  a  poor  mortal  critic  can  be 
perfect,  in  knowledge  of  his  subject,  in  judg- 
ment, in  tact  and  tone."  He  must  be,  further, 
"a  man  of  genius,  with  the  ctincelle  and  the  in- 
stinctive good  sense  and  moderation  which  make 
a  guide  really  attaching  and  useful."2 

20  "Letters,"   II.,  41.    ™Ibid.,   I.,   173. 


2io  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

The  course  of  literary  criticism  "is  determined 
for  it  by  the  idea  which  is  the  law  of  its  being ; 
the  idea  of  a  disinterested  endeavor  to  learn  and 
propagate  the  best  that  has  been  known  and 
thought  in  the  world,,  and  thus  to  establish  a 
current  of  fresh  and  true  ideas."  And  since 
much  of  the  best  that  has  been  known  and 
thought  in  the  world  must  necessarily  be  for- 
eign, "the  English  critic  of  literature  must  dwell 
much  on  foreign  thought,  and  with  particular 
heed  on  any  part  of  it,  which,  while  significant 
and  fruitful  in  itself,  is  for  any  reason  specially 
likely  to  escape  him."  For  "the  criticism  which 
alone  can  help  us  for  the  future  ...  is  a 
criticism  which  regards  Europe  as  being,  for  in- 
tellectual and  spiritual  purposes,  one  great  con- 
federation, bound  to  a  joint  action  and  working 
to  a  common  result;  and  whose  members  have, 
for  their  proper  outfit,  a  knowledge  of  Greek, 
Roman,  and  Eastern  antiquity,  and  of  one  an- 
other." "I  hate,"  he  says  in  a  letter,22  "all  over- 
preponderance  of  single  elements,  and  all  my 
efforts  are  directed  to  enlarge  and  complete  us 
by  bringing  in  as  much  as  possible  of  Greek, 
Latin,  and  Celtic  authors."  Every  one,  there- 
fore, with  any  turn  for  literature  will  do  well 

22  "Letters,"  I.,  287. 


Matthew  Arnold.  211 

steadily  to  widen  his  culture,  severely  to  check 
in  himself  the  provincial  spirit;  and  to  keep  in 
mind  "that  all  mere  glorification  by  ourselves  of 
ourselves  or  our  literature  ...  is  both  vul- 
gar and,  besides  being  vulgar,  retarding."  "In- 
stead of  always  fixing  our  thoughts  upon  the 
points  in  which  our  literature  and  our  intel- 
lectual life  generally  are  strong,  we  should  from 
time  to  time  fix  them  upon  those  in  which  they 
are  weak,  and  so  learn  to  perceive  what  we  have 
to  amend." 

As  to  pronouncing  judgment  on  literature, 
which  is  often  regarded  as  the  critic's  one  busi- 
ness, Arnold,  in  stating  what  he  conceives  to 
be  the  true  principle,  impliedly  explains  his  own 
method : 

The  judgment  which  almost  insensibly  forms  itself 
in  a  fair  and  clear  mind,  along  with  fresh  knowledge, 
is  the  valuable  one ;  and  thus  knowledge,  and  ever  fresh 
knowledge,  must  be  the  critic's  great  concern  for  him- 
self. And  it  is  by  communicating  fresh  knowledge, 
and  letting  his  own  judgment  pass  along  with  it — but 
insensibly,  and  in  the  second  place,  not  the  first,  as 
a  sort  of  companion  and  clue,  not  as  an  abstract  law- 
giver— that  the  critic  will  generally  do  most  good  to 
readers. 

Following  his  own  principle — "to  learn  and 
propagate  the  best  that  has  been  known  and 


212  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

thought  in  the  world" — Arnold  concerned  him- 
self little  with  the  mass  of  current  English  lit- 
erature ;  partly  because  so  little  of  it  came  un- 
der that  definition,  more  because  the  personal 
bias  was  so  liable  to  influence  the  critic's  judg- 
ment of  contemporary  authors.  But  to  those 
who  must  deal  with  current  English  literature 
he  suggested  to  try  it,  so  far  as  they  could,  by 
the  standard  of  the  best  that  is  known  and 
thought  in  the  world ;  and  that,  "to  get  any- 
where near  this  standard,  every  critic  should  try 
and  possess  one 'great  literature  at  least,  besides 
his  own,  and  the  more  unlike  his  own  the  bet- 
ter." 

The  great  function  of  criticism  is  to  prepare 
the  way  for  creative  epochs  of  literature.  To 
have  the  sense  of  creative  activity — "the  great 
happiness  and  the  great  proof  of  being  alive"- 
is  not  denied  to  criticism :  "but  then  criticism 
must  be  sincere,  simple,  flexible,  ardent,  ever 
widening  its  knowledge." 

Still,  in  full  measure,  the  sense  of  creative  activity 
belongs  only  to  genuine  creation ;  in  literature  we  must 
never  forget  that.  It  is  no  such  common  matter  for  a 
gifted  nature  to  come  into  possession  of  a  current  of 
true  and  living  ideas,  and  to  produce  amidst  the  in- 
spiration of  them,  that  we  are  likely  to  underrate  it. 
The  epochs  of  /Eschylus  and  Shakespeare  make  us 


Matthew  Arnold.  213 

feel  their  preeminence.  In  an  epoch  like  those  is,  no 
doubt,  the  true  life  of  literature;  there  is  the  promised 
land,  toward  which  criticism  can  only  beckon.  That 
promised  land  it  will  not  be  ours  to  enter,  and  we 
shall  die  in  the  wilderness;  but  to  have  desired  to 
enter  it,  to  have  saluted  it  from  afar,  is  already  perhaps 
the  best  distinction  among  contemporaries ;  it  will  cer- 
tainly be  the  best  title  to  esteem  with  posterity. 

As  compared  with  our  own  chief  critic,  Low- 
ell, Arnold  educates  more,  though  he  dazzles  less. 
"Lowell's  address  at  Birmingham,"  said  Arnold 
in  a  letter,28  "is  full  of  good  things,  and  the 
Times  is  loud  in  its  praise.  But  here  again  I 
feel  the  want  of  body  and  current  in  the  dis- 
course as  a  whole,  and  am  not  satisfied  with  a 
host  of  shrewd  and  well-wrought  and  even  bril- 
liant sayings."  That  is  not  an  unjust  criticism. 
The  great  merit  of  both  critics  was  to  have  led 
men  to  appreciate  more  fully,  to  love  more  pro- 
foundly, the  great  poets.  But  Arnold  is  more 
constructive,  more  educative,  than  Lowell.  He 
can  tell  us  simply,  but  at  the  same  time  almost 
unerringly,  wherein  and  why  a  poet  is  great.  He 
lays  bare  the  secret  of  his  power.  Above  all,  he 
helps  us  to  feel  that  the  great  poets  are  not  only 
necessary  but  delightful  reading.  His  doctrine 
on  poetry,  or  any  particular  poet,  seems  often, 

23  "Letters,"  II.,  313. 


214  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

on  first  reading,  so  simple  as  hardly  to  be  a  body 
of  doctrine  at  all.  But  after  reading  his  two  vol- 
umes of  "Essays  in  Criticism,"  you  realize  that 
the  doctrine  has  been  a  leavening,  an  enriching 
influence ;  that  he  has  educated  yott  in  good  taste. 

When  a  young  man,  after  reading  the  "Count 
of  Monte  Christo,"  read  the  sixth  book  of  the 
'' Odyssey"  and  said,  "I  could  have  shouted  for 
joy  ;  I  knew  that  was  literature,"  I  said  to  myself, 
"That  is  just  the  way  Arnold  works."  Arnold's 
essays  on  "The  Study  of  Poetry"  and  on  Words- 
worth made  me  a  Wordsworthian.  I  had  read 
Lowell's  essay  on  Wordsworth  years  before,  and 
had  been  scarcely  more  attracted  to  than  re- 
pelled from  Wordsworth,  so  much  does  Lowell 
lay  stress  on  the  dullness  and  prosiness  of  so 
large  a  part  of  Wordsworth's  poetry.  Arnold, 
too,  "marks  the  longueurs  of  Wordsworth,  his 
flatness,  his  mass  of  inferior  work,"  as  Frederic 
Harrison  says.  But  he  made  a  volume  of  superb 
selections  of  Wordsworth's  masterpieces.  His 
essay  sent  me  to  that  volume,  and  that  volume 
made  me  a  Wordsworthian  forever. 

When  Lady  Airlie  told  Disraeli  that  she 
thought  Arnold's  aptness  at  coining  and  estab- 
lishing current  phrase-s  was  a  disadvantage,  since 
people  got  hold  of  the  phrases  and  then  thought 
that  thev  knew  all  about  his  work,  Disraeli  re- 


Matthew  Arnold.  215 

plied:  "Never  mind;  it  is  a  great  achievement." 
And  it  was. 

This  is  a  very  rare  power  [says  Frederic  Harri- 
son], and  one  peculiarly  rare  amongst  Englishmen. 
Carlyle  had  it,  Disraeli  had  it ;  but  how  few  others 
amongst  our  contemporaries !  Arnold's  current  phrases 
still  in  circulation  are  more  numerous  than  those  of 
Disraeli,  and  are  more  simple  and  apt  than  Carlyle's. 
These  ITTEC  Trrepdevra  fly  through  the  speech  of  culti- 
vated men,  pass  current  in  the  market  place ;  they  are 
generative,  efficient,  and  issue  into  act.  They  may  be 
right  or  wrong,  but  at  any  rate  they  do  their  work. 
They  teach,  they  guide,  possibly  may  mislead,  but  they 
are  alive. 

When  Arnold  speaks  of  Homer's  poetry  as 
"rapid,  direct,  simple,  and  noble" ;  of  "the  inspir- 
ing and  intoxicating  effect"  of  the  power  and 
style  of  Pindar;  of  Chaucer's  "liquid  diction, 
fluid  movement";  of  Spenser's  "fluidity  and 
sweet  ease" ;  of  Shakespearian  "largeness  and 
indulgence" ;  of  Milton's  "sure  and  flawless  per- 
fection of  rhythm  and  diction" ;  of  Gray  as  "the 
scantiest  and  frailest  of  classics  in  our  poetry, 
but  still  a  classic" ;  of  Burns'  "spring,  bounding 
swiftness";  of  Wordsworth's  "high  seriousness" 
and  his  "healing  power" ;  of  the  "magic  of 
style,"  the  "fascinating  felicity"  of  Keats;  of 
Byron  that  "our  soul  had  felt  him  like  the  thun- 
der's roll";  of  Shelley  as  "beautiful  and  inef- 


216  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

factual  angel,  beating  in  the  void  his  luminous 
wings  in  vain" — we  feel  all  the  truth  and  force 
of  a  fairly  adequate  definition.  Only  a  great 
critic  could  so  hit  off  things.  Such  criticism 
"illuminates  and  rejoices  us." 

What  Philistine  even  is  there  who  cannot 
count  off  a  long  roll  of  Arnold's  apt  designations 
and  phrases  ?  "Philistine,"  "Barbarian,"  "saving 
remnant,"  "young  lions  of  the  press,"  "urban- 
ity," "balance,"  "high  seriousness,"  "sweet  rea- 
sonableness," "sweetness  and  light,"  "stream  of 
tendency,"  "lucidity  of  soul/'  "liquid  diction," 
"fluid  movement,"  "the  grand  style,"  "magic  of 
style,"  "note  of  provinciality,"  "note  of  distinc- 
tion," "sense"  for  conduct,  for  knowledge,  for 
beauty,  for  social  life  and  manners.  How  many, 
too,  of  Arnold's  definitions  and  aphoristic  say- 
ings lodge  in  the  mind,  and  work  like  leaven  to 
clarify  and  purify  one's  ideas  !  "The  Eternal  Pow- 
er not  ourselves,  that  makes  for  righteousness"; 
"Israel's  master  feeling,  the  feeling  for  right- 
eousness" ;  "religion  is  morality  touched  by  emo- 
tion" ;  "conduct  is  three-fourths  of  life" ;  "poetry 
is  a  criticism  of  life" ;  "culture  is  reading" ; 
"genius,  the  ruling  divinity  of  poetry" ;  "intel- 
ligence, the  ruling  divinity  of  prose" ;  "politics, 
that  'wild  and  dreamlike  trade'  of  insincerity" ; 
"excellence  is  not  common  or  abundant" ;  "the 


Matthew  Arnold.  217 

ideal,  the  saving  ideal,  of  a  high  and  rare  excel- 
lence"; "the  discipline  of  respect  for  a  high  and 
flawless  work";  "the  severe  discipline  necessary 
for  all  real  culture." 

THE  POET. 

Goethe's  task  was,  the  inevitable  task  for  the  modern 
poet  henceforth  is — as  it  was  for  the  Greek  poet  in  the 
days  of  Pericles — not  to  preach  a  sublime  sermon  on 
a  given  text,  like  Dante;  not  to  exhibit  all  the  king- 
doms of  human  life,  and  the.  glory  of  them,  like  Shakes- 
peare; but  to  interpret  human  life  afresh,  and  to  sup- 
ply a  new  spiritual  basis  to  it. 

So  writes  Arnold,  in  "Letters  on  Celtic  Lit- 
erature," and  impliedly  defines  the  task  which 
he  had  set  himself  in  his  own  poetry.  "To  in- 
terpret human  life  afresh,  to  supply  a  new  spir- 
itual basis  to  it,"  was  indeed  Arnold's  chief  ef- 
fort in  the  majority  of  his  prose  works — "Liter- 
ature and  Dogma,"  "God  and  the  Bible,"  "St. 
Paul  and  Protestantism,"  "Culture  and  Anar- 
chy"— as  well  as  in  his  poetry.  Indeed,  Arnold's 
chief  concern  in  life  was  religion.  In  this  he 
was  his  father's  son.  Dean  Stanley  and  Thomas 
Hughes  seem,  in  active  religious  and  social  life, 
the  natural  outcome  of  Dr.  Arnold's  vigorous 
liberalism  in  religion ;  perhaps  as  inevitable, 
though  a  remoter,  outcome  in  letters  were  Mat- 


2i8  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

thew  Arnold,  Arthur  Clough,  and  Mrs.  Hum- 
phry Ward.  Certainly  Arnold  always  thought 
that  he  was  doing-  his  father's  work,  and  he  al- 
ways claimed  that  his  critical  studies  touching 
the  Bible  were  religious.  "I  never  touch,"  says 
he,24  "on  considerations  about  the  State  without 
feeling  myself  on  his  ground."  He  was  delight- 
ed when  Dean  Stanley  told  him  that  the  ideas 
of  the  preface  to  "Culture  and  Anarchy"  were 
exactly  what  his  father  would  have  approved. 
In  a  letter  to  his  sister,  Miss  Arnold,  he  says: 
"It  will  more  and  more  become  evident  how  re- 
ligious is  the  work  I  have  done  in  'Literature 
and  Dogma.'  "  And  he  concludes  the  preface 
to  "God  and  the  Bible"  with  the  claim  that  "a 
calmer  and  more  gradual  judgment"  will  recog- 
nize his  work  "to  have  been  an  attempt  con- 
servative, and  an  attempt  religious." 

"Not  to  break  with  one's  connection  with  the 
past  in  one's  religion  is  one  of  the  strongest  in- 
stincts in  human  nature,"  said  Arnold  with  re- 
gard to  Catholicism;25  and  his  whole  life  was 
an  effort  not  to  break  entirely  with  the  past  in 
religion.  One  finds,  according  to  Arnold,  one's 
truest  expression  in  poetry,  and  here  we  may 
look  for  the  deepest  religious  note  in  Arnold. 

""Letters,"  I.,  400.     s*Ibid.,  II.,  151. 


Mattheiv  Arnold.  219 

What  was  the  dominant  note  of  his  poetry?  It 
was  "the  eternal  note  of  sadness,"  "a  brooding 
over  man's  destiny,"  the  Weltschmcrz. 

A  longing  to  inquire 

Into  the  mystery  of  this  heart  which  beats 
So  wild,  so  deep  in  us — to  know 
Whence  our  lives  come  and  where  they  go.23 

His  poetry  was  an  attempt  to  express  "the 
world's  deep,  inarticulate  craving  for  spiritual 
peace."  There  was  in  Arnold  a  combination  of 
the  Greek  strain  and  the  Oriental.  He  would 
have  the  joy  of  the  Greek ;  he  has  the  resigned 
sadness  of  the  Oriental.  Deep  down  even  in  the 
Greek  there  is  an  undertone  of  melancholy,  and 
this  undertone  was  strong  in  Arnold.  The  source 
of  his  sadness  was  primarily  the  change  from  the 
simple  religious  views  which  characterized  the 
home  of  his  childhood,  and  the  sense  of  "the  cen- 
tury's eclipse  of  faith."  His  was  the  anguish  of 
Stagirius, 

When  the  soul,  growing  clearer, 
Sees  God  no  nearer, 
When  the  soul,  mounting  higher, 
To  God  comes  no  nigher. 

Perhaps  "The  Grande  Chartreuse,"  best  of  all 
Arnold's  poems,  expresses  the  change  that  had 

26"The  Buried  Life." 


22O  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

taken  place  in  him,  the  void  left  in  his  heart, 

the  "nameless  sadness"  that  resulted. 

For  rigorous  teachers  seized  my  youth, 
And  purged  its  faith,  and  trimmed  its  fire, 

Showed  me  the  high  white  star  of  Truth, 
There  bade  me  gaze  and  there  aspire. 

In  the  "Carthusian  Monastery"  he  feels 

As  on  some  far  northern  strand, 
Thinking  of  his  own  gods,  a  Greek 

In  pity  and  mournful  awe  might  stand 
Before  some  fallen  Runic  stone — 
For  both  were  faiths,  and  both  are  gone. 

Wandering  between  two  worlds,  one  dead, 
The  other  powerless  to  be  born, 

With  nowhere  yet  to  rest  my  head, 
Like  these  on  earth  I  wait  forlorn. 

Their  faith,  my  tears,  the  world  deride, 

I  come  to  shed  them  at  their  side. 

This  is  the  real  cry  of  Arnold's  heart,  and  it 
is  a  note  we  get  only  in  his  poems.  And  we 
cannot  help  wondering  sometimes,  Are  the  only 
alternatives  the  course  of  Huxley  or  the  course 
of  Newman?  Are  all  other  resting  places  tem- 
porary? Arnold  spent  his  whole  life  in  trying  to 
persuade  himself  and  others  that  neither  alter- 
native was  necessary  or  right ;  but  the  sadness 
remained,  and  a  half-despairing  resignation  is 
the  dominant  note  of  his  most  characteristic 


Matthew  Arnold.  221 

poetry.  Already  in  1848  life  seemed  to  him  a 
"long  heart-wasting  show" ;  and  though  his  later 
view  was  more  cheerful,  it  was  never  joyful. 
Man's  life  is 

.    .    .    the  hot  race 

Wherein  he  doth  forever  chase 

That  flying  and  elusive  shadow,  rest.27 

In  the  "Scholar-Gipsy"  he  complains  of 

This  strange  disease  of  modern  life, 
With  its  sick  hurry,  its  divided  aims, 
Its  heads  o'ertaxed,  its  palsied  hearts. 

Happy,  in  comparison,  is  the  "Scholar-Gipsy": 

Free  from  the  sick  fatigue,  the  languid  doubt, 

Which  much  to  have  tried,  in  much  been  baffled,  brings. 

"Men  have  such  need  of  joy,"  he  said,  that 
"joy  in  widest  commonalty  spread,"  which 
Wordsworth  found.  But  already  in  "Empedo- 
cles"  he  confessed, 

The  world  hath  failed  to  impart 
The  joy  our  youth  forebodes ; 

and  long  afterwards,  in  "Dover  Beach,"  the  note 
is  the  same,  "the  eternal  note  of  sadness" : 

.    .    .     The  world  which  seems 

To  lie  before  us  like  a  land  of  dreams, 

27"The  Buried  Life." 


222  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

So  various,  so  beautiful,  so  new, 

Hath  really  neither  joy,  nor  love,  nor  light, 

Nor  certitude,  nor  peace,  nor  help  for  pain ; 

And  we  are  here  as  on  a  darkling  plain 

Swept  with  confused  alarms  of  struggle  and  flight, 

Where  ignorant  armies  clash  by  night. 

From  his  "Poems"  and  his  "Letters"  alike  we 
learn  how  intimate  and  wholesome,  how  almost 
Wordsworthian,  was  Arnold's  communion  with 
nature ;  and  yet  even 

.     .     .     through  the  hum  of  torrent  lone 

And  brooding  mountain  bee 
There  sobs  I  know  not  what  ground-tone 

Of  human  agony.28 

Even  of  ''that  general  life  which  does  not 
cease,"  the  secret  is  "not  joy,  but  peace" : 

.     .     .     The  mute  turf  we  tread 

The  solemn  hills  around  us  spread, 

This  stream  which  falls  incessantly, 

The  strange  scrawled  rocks,  the  lonely  sky, 

If  I  might  lend  their  life  a  voice, 

Seem  to  bear  rather  than  rejoice.29 

Not  joy,  then,  but  self-renunciation,,  he  found 
to  be  the  higher  rule,  as  George  Eliot  did,  as 
Goethe  did : 

28  "Obermann."     ae  "Resignation." 


Matthew  Arnold.  223 

He  only  lives  with  the  world's  life 
Who  hath  renounced  his  own. 

"Sick  for  calm,"  like  Balder,  he  prayed: 

Calm  soul  of  all  things !  make  it  mine 

To  feel,  amid  the  city's  jar, 
That  there  abides  a  peace  of  thine, 

Man  did  not  make  and  cannot  mar.30 

This  calm,  or  peace,  Arnold,  like  his  favorite 
Hebrew  prophet,  is  fond  of  figuring  as  a  river. 
"Then  had  thy  peace  been  as  a  river,  and  thy 
righteousness  as  the  waves  of  the  sea."  (Isaiah 
xlviii.  18.)  "I  will  extend  peace  to  her  like  a 
river,  and  the  glory  of  the  Gentiles  like  a  flowing 
stream."  (Isaiah  Ixvi.  12.)  Compare  the  con- 
cluding lines  of  "The  Future" : 

But  what  was  before  us  we  know  not, 
And  we  know  not  what  shall  succeed. 

Haply  the  river  of  Time — 

As  it  grows,  as  the  towns  on  its  marge 

Fling  their  wavering  lights 

On  a  wider,  statelier  stream — 

May  acquire,  if  not  the  calm 

Of  its  early  mountainous  shore, 

Yet  a  solemn  peace  of  its  own. 

And  the  width  of  the  waters,  the  hush 
Of  the  gray  expanse  where  he  floats, 

30  "In  Kensington  Gardens." 


224  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

Freshening  its  current  and  spotted  with  foam 

As  it  draws  to  the  ocean,  may  strike 

Peace  to  the  soul  of  the  man  on  its  breast — 

As  the  pale  waste  widens  around  him, 

As  the  banks  fade  dimmer  away, 

As  the  stars  come  out,  and  the  night  wind 

Brings  up  the  stream 

Murmurs  and  scents  of  the  infinite  sea. 

So,  too,  I  am  sure,  at  the  close  of  "Sohrab 
and  Rustum,"  where  the  old  warrior  has  unwit- 
tingly slain  his  own  son,  the  same  beautiful  fig- 
ure typifies  the  rest  that  is  now  Sohrab's,  and 
promises  peace  to  Rustum's  remorse : 

.     .     .     and  from  his  limbs 

Unwillingly   the   spirit  fled  away, 

Regretting  the  warm  mansion  which  it  left, 

And  youth,  and  bloom,  and  this  delightful  world. 

So,  on  the  bloody  sand,  Sohrab  lay  dead, 

And  the  great  Rustum  drew  his  horseman's  cloak 

Down  o'er  his  face,  and  sate  by  his  dead  son. 

As  those  black  granite  pillars,  once  high  reared 

By  Jemshid  in  Persepolis,  to  bear 

His  house,  now  'mid  their  broken  flights  of  steps 

Lie  prone,  enormous,  down  the  mountain  side — 

So  in  the  sand  lay  Rustum  by  his  son. 

And  night  came  down  over  the  solemn  waste, 

And  the  two  gazing  hosts,  and  that  sole  pair, 

And  darkened  all;  and  a  cold  fog,  with  night, 

Crept  from  the  Oxus.     .     .     . 

But  the  majestic  river  floated  on, 

Out  of  the  mist  and  hum  of  that  low  land, 


'Matthew  Arnold.  225 

Into  the  frosty  starlight,  and  there  moved, 

Rejoicing,  through  the  hushed  Chorasmian  waste, 

Under  the  solitary  moon;  he  flowed 

Right  for  the  polar  star,  past  Orgunje 

Brimming,  and  bright,  and  large ;  then  sands  begin 

To  hem  his  watery  march,  and  dam  his  streams, 

And  split  his  currents;  that  for  many  a  league 

The  shorn  and  parceled  Oxus  strains  along 

Through  beds  of  sand  and  matted,  rushy  isles — 

Oxus,  forgetting  the  bright  speed  he  had 

In  his  high  mountain  cradle  in  Pamere, 

A  foiled,  circuitous  wanderer — till  at  last 

The  longed-for  dash  of  waves  is  heard,  and  wide 

His  luminous  home  of  waters  opens,  bright 

And  tranquil,  from  whose  floor  the  new-bathed  stars 

Emerge,  and  shine  upon  the  Aral  Sea. 

But  if  Arnold  does  not  bring  a  message  of 
hope,  as  Tennyson  did,  or  joy,  as  Browning  did ; 
if  to  him  the  hereafter  is  simply 

The  future  and  its  viewless  things, 
That  undiscovered  mystery;81 

if  of  his  lost  friend,  Arthur  Clough,  he  could 
say  only, 

For  there  thine  earth-forgetting  eyelids  keep 
The  morningless  and  unawakening  sleep 
Under  the  flowery  oleanders  pale ; s2 


31A  Wish."     32"Thyrsis." 
15 


226  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

if  he  does  conclude, 

Unduped  of  fancy,  henceforth  man 

Must  labor !  must  resign 
His  all  too  human  creeds,  and  scan 

Simply  the  way  divine ; Z3 

he  does  not,  for  all  that,  say,  "Let  us  eat  and 
drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die."  Arnold's  essen- 
tial doctrine,  preached  at  length  in  several  prose 
volumes,  is  contained  in  a  single  line  of  the 
poem,  "Worldly  Place" : 

The  aids  to  noble  life  are  all  within. 
And  in  the  "Better  Part"  he  says : 

Hast  thou  no  second  life  ?     Pitch  this  one  high ! 

Sits  there  no  judge  in  Heaven  our  sin  to  see? 

More  strictly,  then,  the  inward  judge  obey! 
Was  Christ  a  man  like  us  ?     Ah,  let  us  try 

If  we  then,  too,  can  be  such  men  as  he. 

Amid  all  doubts  and  uncertainties,  one  must  still 
pursue  "whatsoever  things  are  lovely,  whatso- 
ever things  are  pure,  whatsoever  things  are  of 
good  report" ;  must  strive  to  he  one  of 

.     .     .     that   small   transfigured   band, 

Whom  many  a  different  way 
Conducted  to  their  common  land — 

3S"Obermann  Once  More." 


Matthew  Arnold.  227 

Whose  one  bond  is  that  all  have  been 
Unspotted  by  the  world.34 

He  did  seem,  moreover,  to  believe,  at  least  at 
times,  in  some  sort  of  eternal  life.  Of  the 
Brontes,  who  lie  buried  in  Haworth  Churchyard, 
he  says: 

Unquiet  souls ! 

In  the  dark  fermentation  of  earth, 
In  the  never  idle  workshop  of  nature, 
In  the  eternal  movement, 
Ye  shall  find  yourselves  again.85 

And  he  suggests  how  and  by  whom  eternal  life 
may  be  attained : 

The  energy  of  life  may  be 
Kept  on  after  the  grave,  but  not  begun; 
And  he  who  flagged  not  in  the  earthly  strife, 
From  strength  to  strength  advancing — only  he — 
His  soul  well  knit,  and  all  his  battles  won, 
Mounts,  and  that  hardly,  to  eternal  life.36 

And  so  for  his  father  his  faith  rings  out  above 

doubt : 

Somewhere,  surely,  afar 
In  the  sounding  labor  house  vast 
Of  being,  is  practiced  that  strength, 
Zealous,  beneficent,  firm ! 

""Obermann."    36"Epilogue"  (Haworth  Churchyard). 
"""Immortality." 


228  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

Yes,  in  some  far-shining  sphere, 
Conscious  or  not  of  the  past, 
Still  thou  performest  the  word 
Of  the  Spirit  in  whom  thou  dost  live—- 
Prompt, unwearied  as  here ! " 

Those  who  know  how  completely  the  "eternal 
note  of  sadness"  dominates  Arnold's  poetry,  and 
so  must  have  been  the  real  note 'of  his  inner  be- 
ing, are  glad  to  know  from  the  "Letters"  how 
happy  was  his  wedded  life ;  how  he  loved  and 
was  loved  by  his  children  and  relatives  and 
friends ;  how  fond  he  was  of  brooks  and  rivers 
and  lakes,  of  the  sea  and  of  the  mountains,  of 
flowers  and  animals ;  how  cheerful  and  brave 
and  kindly  he  was  to  everybody ;  that  it  was  the 
"Weltschmer^'  alone  that  made  him  sad. 

It  has  been  suggested  that  as  Arnold's  char- 
acteristic note  is  the  cry  of  the  mal  dn  siecle,  if 
the  world  should  ever  be  healed  of  this,  and  an 
era  of  faith  return,  then  Arnold's  day  would  be 
done ;  the  age  of  spiritual  discomfort  having 
passed,  we  should  heed  no  longer  the  song  which 
voiced  that  age.  There  is  something  in  this 
suggestion ;  but  I  cannot  admit  its  full  force. 
Even  in  poems  whose  dominant  note  is  "the  eter- 
nal note  of  sadness,"  there  are  strains  of  high 

3T"Rugby   Chapel." 


Matthew  Arnold.  229 

seriousness  and  austere  beauty  which  will  live  on 
in  spite  of  all  changes  of  thought  and  feeling,  no 
matter  whether  faith  dies  or  revives.  Such  are 
"Dover  Beach,"  "The  Future,"  "Resignation," 
"The  Youth  of  Nature,"  and  "Obermann."  But 
there  are  to  be  found  also  in  Arnold  passages  of 
pure  poetry  which  sing  themselves  into  our  souls 
simply  by  reason  of  their  sunny  atmosphere  and 
smiling  landscape,  because  of  their  classic  repose 
or  their  calm  pathos.  Such,  for  instance,  are 
"Thyrsis,"  stanzas  6-14  and  16-20;  the  "Scholar- 
Gipsy,"  8-13  and  21-25  j  tne  Cadmus  and  Har- 
monia  and  the  Apollo  and  Marsyas  choruses  in 
"Empedocles" ;  "The  Forsaken  Merman";  "The 
Church  of  Brou,"  III. ;  "Tristram  and  Iseult," 
III. ;  and,  crowning  achievement  of  all,  the  close 
of  "Sohrab  and  Rustum."  I  will  allow  myself 
to  quote,  in  further  illustration,  only  two  short 
passages  from  poems  on  which  any  lover  of  Ar- 
nold might  safely  rest  his  claim  to  be  a  true  poet. 
The  one  is  from  "The  Forsaken  Merman" : 

We  went  up  the  beach,  by  the  sandy  down 

Where  the  sea  stocks  bloom,  to  the  white-walled  town; 

Through  the  narrow  paved  streets,  where  all  was  still, 

To  the  little  gray  church  on  a  windy  hill. 

From    the    church    came    a    murmur    of    folk    at   their 

prayers, 
But  we  stood  without  in  the  cold  blowing  airs. 


230  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

We  climbed   on   the   graves,   on   the   stones   worn   with 

rains, 
And  we  gazed  up  the  aisle  through  the  small  leaded 

panes. 

The  other  passage  is  from  the  Apollo  and  Mar- 
syas  chorus  in  "Empedocles" : 

Many  a  morning  had  they  gone 

To  the  glimmering  mountain  lakes, 

And  had  torn  up  by  the  roots 

The  tall  crested  water-reeds 

With  long  plumes  and  soft  brown  seeds, 

And  had  carved  them  into  flutes, 

Sitting  on  a  tabled  stone 

Where  the  shoreward  ripple  breaks. 

Of  this  passage  Andrew  Lang  says :  ''The  land- 
scape of  these  lines  seems  to  me  almost  unap- 
proached  for  felicity  in  English  poetry." 

A  stronger  claim  still  might  be  made  for  Ar- 
nold. Not  single  poems  only,  nor  single  strik- 
ing passages,  but  single  great  lines  prove  him 
to  be  a  poet.  Commenting  on  such  lines  as 

Where   Orpheus  and  where   Homer  are, 
and 

Hungry,  and  sharp,  and  barren  as  the  sea, 

Lang  says:  "If  no  more  than  fragments  like 
these  were  left  of  Arnold's  poems  (and  as  evil 


Matthew  Arnold.  231 

a  fate  has  befallen  some  of  the  Greeks),  a  com- 
petent critic  of  the  far-off  future  would  be  able 
to  say  that  the  author  of  them  was  in  the  truest 
sense  a  poet."  How  easy  it  would  be  to  mul- 
tiply the  number  of  such  great  lines ! 

Who  saw  life  steadily,  and  saw  it  whole ; 
And  that  sweet  city  with  her  dreaming  spires; 

And  Egremont  sleeps  by  the  sea ; 

The  far-off  sound   of  a   silver  bell ; 

All  the  live  murmur  of  a  summer's  day; 

Not  daily  labor's  dull  Lethean  spring, 

Oblivion  in  lost  angels  can  infuse 
Of  the  soiled  glory,  and  the  trailing  wing. 

Perhaps  the  human  character  which  most  at- 
tracted Arnold  was  the  Emperor  Marcus  Aure- 
lius.  The  greatest  of  his  essays,  except  those 
introductory  to  the  poets,  was  about  this  "im- 
perial sage,  purest  of  men."  It  was  with  the 
"Meditations"  of  Marcus  Aurelius  that  the  be- 
reaved father,  on  the  morning  after  his  first 
great  sorrow  (the  death  of  his  oldest  son),  was 
trying  to  console  himself. 

Readers  of  the  "Essays  in  Criticism"  [says  the  ed- 
itor of  the  "Letters"]  will  remember  the  beautiful 
eulogy  on  that  great  seeker  after  God,  and  will  per- 


232  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

haps  feel  that  in  describing  him  the  friend  who  speaks 
to  us  in  the  following  pages  half  unconsciously  de- 
scribed himself.  "We  see  him  wise,  just,  self-gov- 
erned, tender,  thankful,  blameless,  yet,  with  all  this, 
agitated,  stretching  out  his  arms  for  something  beyond, 
tendentemque  manus  ripce  ulterioris  amove." 

This  was  indeed  Arnold ;  and  his  poetry,  be- 
ing the  truest  expression  of  himself,  was  full  of 
this  Aurelian  note.  "His  graver  pieces  sound," 
says  Frederic  Harrison,  "like  some  echo  of  the 
imperial  'Meditations'  cast  into  the  form  of  a 
Sophoclean  chorus."  His  constant  "brooding 
over  man's  destiny,"  his  "pensive  philosophy  of 
life,"  his  gnomic  vein,  naturally  fitted  him  for 
elegy,  and  it  is  perhaps  generally  agreed  that 
here  he  is  at  his  best.  This  was  clearly  Tenny- 
son's feeling.  "Tell  Matt.  Arnold,"  he  said,  "to 
write  more  poetry  like  'Thyrsis'  and  the  'Scholar- 
Gipsy,'  and  let  such  subjects  as  'Culture  and 
Anarchy'  alone." 

This  undertone  of  thought  and  austerity  gives  [says 
Frederic  Harrison3*]  a  uniform  and  somewhat  melan- 
choly color  to  every  line  of  his  verse,  not  despairing, 
not  pessimist,  not  querulous,  but  with  a  resolute  and 
pensive  insight  into  the  mystery  of  life  and  of  things, 
reminding  one  of  those  lovely  tombs  in  the  Cerameicus 
at  Athens,  of  Hegeso  and  the  rest,  who  in  immortal 

s*  Nineteenth  Century,  March,  1896. 


Matthew  Arnold.  233 

calm  and  grace  stand,  ever  bidding  to  this  fair  earth 
a  long  and  sweet  farewell. 

"Every  one  is  more  sensitive  about  his  poetry 
than  about  his  other  writings,"  said  Arnold  in  a 
letter;  and  we  are  curious  to  know  what  he  had 
to  say  about  his  own  poems.  He  mentions  them 
in  the  "Letters"  far  less  frequently  than  his  prose 
articles,  doubtless  because,  as  compared  with  the 
reception  of  his  critical  work,  the  poems  were 
less  talked  about. 

I  always  feel  [he  wrote  about  the  poem  on  Stanley 
in  1882]  that  the  public  is  not  disposed  to  take  me 
cordially;  it  receives  my  things  as  Gray  says  it  re- 
ceived all  his  except  the  "Elegy" :  with  more  aston- 
ishment than  pleasure  at  first,  and  does  not  quite  make 
out  what  I  would  be  at ;  however,  that  the  things 
should  wear  well,  and  be  found  to  give  pleasure  as  they 
come  to  be  better  known,  is  the  great  matter. 

He  intimates,  in  referring  to  commendations 
from  Kjngsley  and  Froucle,  that  the  leading  liter- 
ary men  had  welcomed  his  poems.  Disraeli  told  him 
that  he  was  "the  only  man  whom  he  ever  knew 
who  had  become  a  classic  in  his  own  lifetime"  ;S9 
though  he  referred,  doubtless,  to  Arnold's  crit- 
ical work.  "No  one  can  deny  that  he  is  a  poet," 
said  Tennyson.  George  Eliot  said  that  "of  all 

^Nineteenth  Century,  March,  1896. 


234  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

modern  poetry,  his  was  that  which  kept  constant- 
ly growing-  upon  her";  and  the  Bishop  of  Derry 
told  him  that  his  poems  "were  the  center  of  his 
mental  life,  and  that  he  had  read  many  of  them 
hundreds  of  times/'  But  with  the  general  pub- 
lic it  was  different. 

It  is  curious  [he  wrote  in  1878]  how  the  public  is 
beginning  to  take  them  [his  poems]  to  its  bosom  after 
long  years  of  apparent  neglect.  The  wave  of  thought 
and  change  has  rolled  on  until  people  begin  to  find  a 
significance  and  an  attraction  in  what  had  none  for 
them  formerly.  .  .  .  The  writers  of  poetry  have 
been  better  friends  to  me  always  than  the  mass  of 
readers  of  poetry. 

Notwithstanding  the  infrequent  reference,  we 
can  gather  from  the  "Letters"  Arnold's  own  es- 
timate of  the  worth  of  his  poetry,  and  what  he 
thought  of  its  future.  And  no  truer  judgment 
has  been  given  on  his  poems  than  that  by  him- 
self in  a  letter  to  his  mother  in  1869: 

My  poems  represent,  on  the  whole,  the  main  move- 
ment of  mind  of  the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  and 
thus  they  will  probably  have  their  day  as  people  be- 
come conscious  to  themselves  of  what  that  movement 
of  mind  is,  and  interested  in  the  literary  productions 
which  reflect  it.  It  might  be  fairly  urged  that  I  have 
less  poetical  sentiment  than  Tennyson,  and  less  intel- 
lectual vigor  and  abundance  than  Browning;  yet  be- 
cause I  have  more  of  a  fusion  of  the  two  than  either 


Matthew  Arnold.  235 

of  them,  and  have  more  regularly  applied  that  fusion 
to  the  main  line  of  modern  development,  I  am  likely 
enough  to  have  my  turn  as  they  have  had  theirs.40 

That  the  fusion  of  poetical  sentiment  and  in- 
tellectual vigor  was  his  ideal  in  poetry  he  had 
already  stated  six  years  earlier. 

I  do  not  at  present  [he  v/rote  his  mother  in  1863] 
very  much  care  for  poetry  unless  it  can  give  me  true 
thought  as  well  as  true  feeling.  It  is  the  alliance  of 
these  two  that  makes  great  poetry,  the  only  poetry 
really  worth  very  much. 

He  intended,  then,  his  poetry  to  be  "a  hidden 
ground  of  thought  and  austerity  within,"  and  few 
things  would  have  pleased  him  so  much  could 
he  have  read  his  sometime  opponent  Frederic 
Harrison's  frank  recognition  of  his  "intellectual 
vigor  and  abundance." 

He  has  [says  Harrison]  more  general  insight  into 
the  intellectual  world  of  our  age,  and  he  sees  into  it 
more  deeply  and  more  surely,  than  any  contemporary 
poet.  ...  It  must  be  conceded  that  Arnold  in 
his  poetry  dwells  in  a  higher  philosophic  ether  than 
any  contemporary  poet.  He  has  a  wider  learning,  a 
cooler  brain,  and  a  more  masculine  logic.41 

And  we  can  imagine  him  after  a  while  in  the 

""Letters,"  IT.,  10.    ^Nineteenth  Century,  March,  1896. 


236  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

Elysian  fields,  shaking  hands  gratefully  with  the 
Positivist  for  this  verdict: 

But  those  who  thirst  for  the  pure  Castalian  spring, 
inspired  by  sustained  and  lofty  thoughts,  who  care  for 
that  <jTrov6a.i6Tw}  that  "high  seriousness"  of  which  he 
spoke  so  much  as  the  very  essence  of  the  best  poetry, 
have  long  known  that  they  find  it  in  Matthew  Arnold 
more  than  in  any  of  his  even  greater  contemporaries. 

I  have  for  some  time  considered  Arnold  our 
most  stimulating  and  illuminating  helper  to  an 
appreciation  of  the  worth  of  the  ancient  classics. 
His  most  elaborate  statement  of  his  views  on  the 
classics  is  to  be  found,  of  course,  in  what  he 
called  his  "doctrine  of  studies,"  the  lecture  on 
"Literature  and  Science."  But  all  through  his 
works  there  are  remarks,  comparisons,  sugges- 
tions, which  illuminate  and  rejoice  the  spirit  of 
the  classicist.  But,  best  of  all,  his  best  work  has 
the  true  spirit  of  the  classics. 

He  had  been  sprinkled  [says  Frederic  Harrison] 
with  some  of  the  Attic  salt  of  Lucian ;  was  imbued 
with  the  classical  genius — and  never  so  much  as  in  his 
poems.  ...  It  may  be  said  that  no  poet  in  the 
roll  of  our  literature,  unless  it  be  Milton,  has  been  so 
essentially  saturated  to  the  very  bone  with  the  classical 
genius.  Arnold  is  "classical"  [Harrison  adds]  in  the 
serene  self-command,  the  harmony  of  tone,  the  meas- 
ured fitness,  the  sweet  reasonableness  of  his  verse. 


Matthew  Arnold.  237 

That  is  high  praise,  and  richly  deserved.  Like 
Gray,  he  "lived  with  the  great  poets,  above  all 
with  the  Greeks,"  and  he  makes  grateful  ac- 
knowledgment of  his  indebtedness  to  his  ancient 
masters : 

I  say  [said  he  in  "Preface  to  Poems,"  1853],  that  in 
the  sincere  endeavor  to  learn  and  practice,  amid  the 
bewildering  confusion  of  our  times,  what  is  sound  and 
true  in  poetical  art,  I  seemed  to  myself  to  find  the  only 
sure  guidance,  the  only  solid  footing,  among  the  an- 
cients. .  .  .  Let  us  study  them  [said  Arnold  in  con- 
cluding his  second  "Preface"].  They  can  help  to  cure 
us  of  what  is,  it  seems  to  me,  the  great  vice  of  our  in- 
tellect, manifesting  itself  in  our  incredible  vagaries  in 
literature,  in  art,  in  religion,  in  morals — namely,  that 
it  is  fantastic  and  wants  sanity. 

Of  especially  Greek  qualities  we  may  claim 
for  Arnold's  poetry  "severe  and  scrupulous  self- 
restraint"  ;  "clearness  of  arrangement,  vigor  of 
development,  simplicity  of  style,"  as  well  as 
"lucidity  of  thought"  and  "purity  of  method." 
It  is  characterized,  besides,  not  only  by  high  se- 
riousness and  austerity,  but  by  urbanity  of  form 
and  by  charm,  by  exquisite  polish  and  refined 
modulation.  When  we  concede,  with  Frederic 
Harrison,  that  it  lacks  passion,  dramatic  power, 
dithyrambic  glow,  we  have  admitted  that  Arnold 
does  not  belong  to  the  small  number  of  the  very 


238  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

greatest  poets;  but  we  may  claim  for  him,  with 
Harriet  Waters  Preston,  an  "assured  place  in 
the  innermost  circle  of  those  who  surround  the 
very  greatest." 

How  are  we  to  account  for  Arnold's  small 
poetical  product?  Doubtless  the  chief  reason  is 
given  in  the  paragraph  quoted  above  from  one 
of  his  letters,  his  existence  assttj'ettie — in  other 
words,  his  school  inspecting.  But  there  is  surely 
an  additional  reason.  Perhaps  Tennyson  realized 
the  danger  to  Arnold's  poetical  productivity 
when  he  sent  word:  "Tell  Matt.  Arnold  to  write 
more  poetry  like  'Thyrsis'  and  the  'Scholar- 
Gipsy,'  and  let  'Culture  and  Anarchy'  alone." 
Situated  as  he  was,  he  could  devote  only  part 
of  his  energy  to  literature.  There  must  be  a 
sacrifice  somewhere.  One  who  considered  him 
the  greatest  of  English  critics  would  hardly  sug- 
gest that  he,  like  Tennyson,  should  have  given 
himself  exclusively  to  poetry.  His  literary  crit- 
icism will  abide,  at  least  as  a  permanent  influence 
on  English  literature ;  his  poetry  will  live.  It  is 
his  social,  political,  and  religious  essays  that  in 
the  very  nature  of  the  case  must  be  shortest 
lived;  and  if  he  made  a  mistake  in  his  literary 
work,  it  was  there.  He  spent  in  controversy 
energy  which  belonged  to  poetry  and  to  literary 
criticism.  He  "gave  to  sermons  what  was  meant 


Matthew  Arnold.  239 

for  song."  But,  being  his  father's  son,  and  feel- 
ing religious  and  political  questions  so  strongly, 
this  was  probably  inevitable.  His  father  used 
to  say,  "I  must  write  a  pamphlet  or  burst" ;  and 
Matthew  Arnold  was  too  much  his  father's  son 
not  to  be  drawn  into  the  discussion  of  religious 
and  political  questions.  He  himself  realized  the 
danger  early,  for  he  wrote  in  his  thirty-ninth  • 
year  to  his  mother : 

I  must  finish  off  for  the  present  my  critical  writings 
between  this  and  forty,  and  give  the  next  ten  years 
earnestly  to  poetry.  It  is  my  last  chance.  It  is  not  a 
bad  ten  years  of  one  life's  for  poetry  if  one  resolutely 
uses  it;  but  it  is  a  time  in  which,  if  one  does  not  use 
it,  one  dries  up  and  becomes  prosaic  altogether.*2 

Again,  three  years  later,  in  a  letter  to  Grant 
Duff,  he  expresses  this  feeling  still  more  strong- 
ly: 

One  is  from  time  to  time  seized  and  irresistibly  car- 
ried along  by  a  temptation  to  treat  political  or  religious 
or  social  matters  directly;  but  after  yielding  to  such 
a  temptation  I  always  feel  myself  recoiling  again,  and 
disposed  to  touch  them  only  so  far  as  they  can  be 
touched  through  poetry.43 

But  he  kept  yielding  to  the  temptation.  And 
how  could  he  be  expected  to  resist,  when  this 

'""Letters,"  I.,  165.     "Ibid.,  I.,  267. 


240  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

sort  of  thing  gave  him  great  and  immediate  pop- 
ularity ? 

I  am  struck  [he  writes  to  his  mother  in  1868]  to 
find  what  hold  among  these  younger  men  what  I  write 
has  taken.  I  should  think  I  heard  the  word  "Philis- 
tines" used  at  least  a  hundred  times  during  dinner, 
and  "Barbarians"  very  often.44 

After  all,  must  it  not  be  admitted  that  Arnold 
was  not  "driven  by  his  demon  to  poetry,"  as 
Shelley  and  Byron  were? 

Arnold  thought,  as  has  been  said  above,  that 
lie  was  likely  enough  to  have  his  turn,  as  Ten- 
nyson and  Browning  had  had  theirs.  And  Fred- 
eric Harrison  thinks  that,  because  of  its  appeal 
to  the  best  and  most  serious  modern  thought,  his 
poetry  "is  almost  certain  to  gain  a  wider  audi- 
ence, and  to  grow  in  popularity  and  influence." 
Has  Arnold's  turn  come?  Mr.  Stead  has  re- 
cently made  an  interesting  experiment  in  En- 
gland. He  sent  forth  a  selection  from  Arnold's 
poems  as  No.  26  of  his  "Penny  Poets."  Nearly 
two  hundred  thousand  copies  were  sold  within 
six  months,  and  Mr.  Stead  received  cordial  let- 
ters from  common  people  who  had  not  before 
heard  of  Arnold.  Pastors,  too,  are  surprised  to 
find  workingmen  full  of  interest  in  Matthew 

""Letters,"  I.,  457. 


Matthew  Arnold.  241 

Arnold;  and  public  libraries  report  a  new  de- 
mand for  his  poems.  But  all  this  proves  too 
much.  This  popularity  is  fictitious.  So,  the  year 
after  Carlyle's  death,  seventy-two  thousand 
copies  of  the  six-penny  edition  of  "Sartor  Re- 
sartus"  were  sold  in  Great  Britain  alone.  But, 
all  the  same,  "Sartor  Resartus"  can  never  be  a 
popular  book  with  the  common  people.  Doubt- 
less Arnold's  day  will  come,  and  is  already  com- 
ing; but  his  appeal  will  always  be  to  a  select 
though  steadily  growing  audience;  it  can  never 
be  to  the  mass  of  ordinary  readers. 
16 


XL 
STEPHEN  PHILLIPS. 

IN  the  year  1897  a  new  star  appeared  in  the 
firmament  of  English  poetry,  and  was  greeted 
with  an  applause  perhaps  as  universal  as,  certain- 
ly more  unanimous  than,  was  that  which  hailed 
Tennyson.  This  was  natural,  since  Tennyson 
had  prepared  the  world  for  the  new  poet,  and 
the  new  poet  is  Tennyson's  legitimate  successor 
in  his  own  line.  My  own  adhesion  to  the  new 
poet  was  not  due  to  this  general  acclaim,  for  I 
was  unaware  of  the  applause  for  some  time,  ex- 
cept doubtless  to  know  that  the  Academy's  prize 
of  one  hundred  guineas  had  been  awarded  to  a 
new  poet.  I  am  slow  to  read  the  much-talked-of 
new  novels,  still  slower  with  new  poets.  A  lady, 
who  had  been  urging  me  to  read  Stephen  Phil- 
lips, on  returning  to  town  after  a  year's  absence, 
handed  me  the  volume.  That  night  I  read  the 
poem  that  had  been  crowned,  "Christ  in  Hades," 
and  was  struck  at  once  by  the  opening  verses : 

Keen  as  a  blind  man,  at  dawn  awake, 
Smells  in  the  dark  the  cold  odor  of  earth. 
(242) 


STEPHEN   PHILLIPS. 


Stephen  Phillips.  243 

I  thought  the  poem  strong;  but  I  was  not  com- 
pletely captured,  and  no  wonder,  for  it  was  late 
at  night,  and  a  man  in  the  forties  needs  the  vigor 
and  freshness  of  morning  in  his  frame  fully  to 
appreciate  poetry  of  a  high  order.  I  think  it 
was  the  next  morning  I  read  "Marpessa."  and 
my  surrender  was  immediate  and  unconditional. 
I  remember  saying  to  some  one  then :  "Outside 
of  the  admittedly  great  poets,  this  is  the  best 
poetry  I  know." 

It  is  my  way,  perhaps  everybody's  way,  to  try 
favorite  poems  on  my  friends.  I  was  very  care- 
ful, for  only  a  few  really  love  poetry.  So  far  I 
have  read  "Marpessa"  at  different  times  to  per- 
haps a  dozen  people,  and  the  poem  has  captured 
its  auditor  every  time.  It  was  not  till  months 
afterwards  that  I  knew  that  Mr.  William  Wat- 
son, whom  I  greatly  revere  as  poet  and  true  dis- 
ciple of  Wordsworth,  had  been  doing  the  same 
thing  with  "Christ  in  Hades."  "Even  a  literary 
life,"  he  says,  "has  its  pleasures,  and  I  have 
known  no  greater  pleasure  during  recent  years 
than  my  first  reading  of  Mr.  Stephen  Phillips' 
'Christ  in  Hades' — except,  indeed,  my  second 
reading  of  that  poem,  and  perhaps  my  third." 
He  goes  on  to  tell  how,  on  one  occasion,  he  and 
Mr.  Churton  Collins  "sat  talking  about  their  be- 
loved poets  until  far  into  the  waning  night,"  and 


244  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

how  at  length  he  chanced  to  discover  that  Mr. 
Collins,  though  he  knew  everything  else  under 
the  sun,  was  ignorant  of  the  name  and  work  of 
Mr.  Stephen  Phillips.  Reading  passages  from 
the  "Christ  in  Hades"  "to  fastidiously  attentive 
ears,"  he  had  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  he 
had  won  the  appreciation  of  the  critic. 

Very  soon  I  began  to  feel  [continues  Mr.  Watson] 
that  if  Mr.  Phillips  did  not  quickly  do  something  to 
sustain  the  position  which  this  one  noble  poem  had 
earned  for  him,  I  should  have  a  personal  grievance  to 
ventilate.  I  was  deeply  committed  as  a  prophet,  and 
my  credit  was  at  stake.  And  so  it  befell  that  in  due 
sea-son  he  kept  his  promise  and  was  even  better  than 
his  word.  In  "Marpessa"  he  has  demonstrated  what  I 
should  hardly  have  thought  demonstrable :  that  an- 
other poem  can  be  even  finer  than  "Christ  in  Hades." 

Mr.  Stephen  Phillips  was  born  July  28,  1868. 
His  mother  was  a  descendant  of  Wordsworth, 
and  to  her  he  attributes  his  love  of  verse,  which, 
though  innate,  was  dormant,  for  he  had  a  boy's 
contempt  for  all  things  metrical.  But  at  fifteen, 
when  he  was  ill.  his  mother  read  to  him  "Christa- 
bel."  This  proved  to  be  the  touch  that  awakened 
his  spirit,  and  he  rose  from  his  illness  determined 
to  be  a  poet.  For  years  he  wrote  a  great  deal, 
gaining  at  least  a  useful  readiness  of  speech.  He 
entered  Queen's  College,  Cambridge,  in  1886,  but 


Stephen  Phillips.  245 

had  only  one  term;  for  Mr.  Benson's  troupe  of 
Shakespeare  players  came  to  Cambridge  at  that 
time,  and  so  inflamed  him  that  he  got  himself 
taken  on  probation  and  went  upon  the  stage.  So 
one  term  is  his  sole  basis  for  being  counted  with 
the  Cambridge  poets,  Spenser,  Milton,  Gray,  Ten- 
nyson, and  others.  He  continued  with  the  troupe 
six  years ;  but,  while  the  experience  must  have  been 
of  the  greatest  value  to  him  as  a  playwright,  there 
is  no  evidence  that  he  was  extraordinarily  suc- 
cessful as  an  actor,  though  it  is  mentioned  espe- 
cially that  he  played  the  ghost  in  Hamlet  so  well 
that  he  was  called  before  the  curtain,  a  role  in 
which  Shakespeare  himself  is  said  to  have  done 
excellently  well.  Coming  once  with  the  troupe 
to  Oxford,  he  was  led  by  conversation  with  a 
cousin  and  an  East  Indian  student  to  devote  him- 
self again  to  poetry.  The  result  was  "Primave- 
ra,"  a  pamphlet  of  verse,  which  seems  to  have  no 
value  now  in  Mr.  Phillips'  eyes,  and  is  only  a 
find  for  collectors. 

Leaving  Mr.  Benson's  troupe  in  1892,  he  gave 
himself  especially  to  the  study  of  the  Greeks  and 
Milton,  determined  to  restore  blank  verse  to  its 
old  dignity  and  variety.  It  will  some  time  be  re- 
membered, doubtless,  that  this  new  epoch  in  his 
life  coincides  with  the  death  of  Tennyson.  When 
his  "Eremus"  appeared,  in  1894,  he  was  congrat- 


246  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

ulated  as  the  first  to  take  advantage  of  Mr. 
Bridges'  studies  in  Milton's  prosody,  but  at  that 
time  he  had  not  seen  Mr.  Bridges'  work.  Mr. 
Phillips  now  regards  "Eremus"  merely  as  an  ex- 
ercise in  versification,  and  would  suppress  it  if 
he  could.  It  shows,  according  to  Mr.  Gosse, 
''that  the  secret  of  that  marvelous  lyrical  move- 
ment of  unrhymed  iambics,  which  is  Mr.  Phil- 
lips' particular  glory,  had  not,  in  1894,  been  re- 
vealed to  him."  "The  Apparition"  is  said  to  be 
the  only  verse  that  Mr.  Phillips  would  preserve 
from  the  period  before  1895.  ft  was  n°t  ^11  1897, 
when  the  volume  of  poems  containing  the  repub- 
lished  "Christ  in  Hades"  and  "Marpessa"  ap- 
peared, that  the  advent  of  a  new  poet  was  gener- 
ally hailed.  The  recognition  was  instantaneous 
and  cordial.  "He  can  never  provide  us  again," 
says  Mr.  Gosse.  "with  the  thrill  which  a  mature 
new  voice  in  poetry  gives  when  it  is  heard  for 
the  first  time." 

Mr.  Phillips'  first  play,  Paolo  and  Francesco, 
came  out  in  1899;  the  second,  Herod,  in  1900. 
Occasional  poems  appear  now  and  then  in  the 
magazines.  The  Academy  regards  the  "Christ 
in  Hades"  as  superior  even  to  "Marpessa,"  as 
did  the  appreciative  lover  of  good  poetry  who 
introduced  me  to  Stephen  Phillips.  The  Bible 
text,  "Thou  wilt  not  leave  my  soul  in  hell  [Ha- 


Stephen  Phillips.  247 

des],"  suggested  the  poem,  and  the  Nekyia  (book 
xi.)  of  the  ''Odyssey/'  doubtless  also  the  sixth 
book  of  the  "^neid,"  were  in  the  poet's  mind, 
but  the  details,  the  treatment,  are  completely  his 
own.  The  poem  is  in  unrhymed  iambics,  and 
shows  that  he  had  completely  achieved  the  task 
he  set  himself  in  1892,  when  he  devoted  himself 
to  the  study  of  Milton — to  restore  blank  verse 
to  its  old  dignity  and  variety.  He  is  complete 
master  of  this  great  verse  form,  and-  it  is  un- 
questionably the  fittest  in  which  his  especial  gen- 
ius can  express  itself.  If  his  blank  verse  shall 
ever  seem  greater,  it  will  be  because  it  is  more 
heavily  freighted  with  richer,  deeper,  broader 
ideas,  the  fruit  of  profounder  observation,  wider 
knowledge  of  men  and  things.  The  form  is  now 
perfect.  To  be  fully  appreciated,  the  poem  must 
be  read  as  a  whole,  and  not  once  but  often.  I 
liked  it  at  first ;  but  not  till  the  third  reading  did 
its  great  power  really  dawn  upon  me,  and  at  ev- 
ery re-reading  it  seems  greater  still.  There  are 
plenty  of  characteristic  passages  which  may  be 
quoted  with  the  certainty  that  their  charm  will 
be  recognized  even  when  thus  detached.  Perse- 
phone's speech  shows  his  best  qualities : 

It  is  the  time  of  tender  opening  things. 
Above  my  head  the  fields  murmur  and  wave, 
And  breezes  are  just  moving  the  clear  heat. 


248  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

O  the  midnoon  is  trembling  on  the  corn, 
On  cattle  calm  and  trees  in  perfect  sleep. 

How  touching  is  the  cry  of  the  Athenian  spirit 
to  Christ! 

O  pity  us ; 

For  I  would  ask  of  thee  only  to  look 
Upon  the  wonderful  sunlight,  and  to  smell 
Earth  in  the  rain. 

All  the  emptiness  of  death  is  in  the  cry  of  the 
woman : 

Whom,  then,  dost  thou  seek? 

For  see,  we  are  so  changed :  thou  wouldst  not  know 
The  busy  form  that  moved  about  thy  fire. 
She  has  no  occupation  and  no  care, 
No  little  tasks. 

In  the  words  of  the  Roman  are  "the  Virgilian 
stateliness  and  simplicity": 

Around  thee  is  the  scent 
Of  over-beautiful  quick-fading  things  : 
The  pang,  the  gap,  the  briefness,  all  the  dew, 
Tremble,  and  suddenness  of  earth :  I  must 
Remember  young  men  dead  in  their  hot  bloom, 
The  sweetness  of  the  world  edged  like  a  sword, 
The  melancholy  knocking  of  those  waves, 
The  deep  unhappiness  of  winds,  the  light 
That  comes  on  things  we  nevermore  shall  see. 
Yet  I  am  thrilled:  thou  seemest  like  the  bourne 
Of  all  our  music,  of  the  hinting  night, 
Of  souls  under  the  moonlight  opening. 


Stephen  Phillips.  249 

In  this  strong  and  beautiful  poem  we  recognize 
the  qualities  claimed  for  Mr.  Phillips  by  the 
Academy:  "Seriousness  of  purpose,"  "interpre- 
tative sympathy,"  "singular  instinct  for  the  right 
word,"  "a.  heart  attuned  to  the  beauty  and  the 
meaning  of  things,"  "the  perfect  fusion  of  mat- 
ter into  form  which  is  that  indefinable,  inimitable, 
undeniable  thing  style."  It  is  classic  in  its  set- 
ting. Not  only  is  the  general  indebtedness  to 
Homer  and  Virgil  evident,  and  the  atmosphere  of 
classic  mythology  about  it  from  the  parts  played 
in  it  by  Persephone,  Hermes,  Prometheus,  the 
Athenian  ghost,  the  Roman,  the  Furies;  but  in- 
dividual allusions  make  us  feel  that  it  is  a  Greek 
Hades.  When  the  Athenian  ghost  says, 

Is  not  the  laborer, 

Returning  heavy  through  the  August  sheaves 
Against  the  setting  sun,  who  gladly  smells 
His  supper  from  the  opening  door — is  he 
Not  happier  than  these  melancholy  kings? 

we  know  that  the  poet  had  in  mind  the  famous 
reply  of  Achilles'  shade  to  Odysseus  in  the  elev- 
enth book  of  the  "Odyssey":  "Rather  would  I 
live  upon  the  earth  as  the  hireling  of  another, 
with  a  landless  man,  than  bear  sway  among  all 
the  dead  that  be  departed."  In  these  lines,  also 
from  the  Athenian's  address, 


250  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

Just  as  a  widower,  that  dreaming  holds 
His  dead  wife  in  his  arms,  not  wondering, 
So  natural  it  appears, 

the  poet  certainly  was  inspired  by  a  glorious  pas- 
sage in  Tennyson's  "Guinevere"- 

Tears  of  the  widower  when  he  sees 
A  late  lost  form  that  sleep  reveals ; 

but  he  might  have  had  in  mind  also,  as  Tennyson 
undoubtedly  had  in  mind,  the  similar  passage  in 
the  great  chorus  of  ^Eschylus  ("Agamemnon," 
429  ff.).  So  when  the  spirit  of  the  woman  says, 

Thou  canst  not  fetch 
Thy  drooping,  listless  woman  to  the  air, 

one  thinks,  as  the  poet  thought,  of  Orpheus  and 
Eurydice.  One  is  tempted  to  call  especial  atten- 
tion to  Ixion,  or  to  the  "softly  feeding  vulture" 
of  Prometheus,  or  to  the  reminiscences  from  the 
Greek  poets  evoked  by  the  line, 

The  beautiful  ease  of  the  untroubled  gods, 

and  to  other  points  where  one  feels  Greek  influ- 
ence, if  space  allowed. 

It  is  a  great  poem,  but  "another  poem  can  be 
even  finer  than  'Christ  in  Hades,'  "  as  Mr.  Wat- 
son said.  "A  poet's  writing  should  be  sweet  to 


Stephen  Phillips.  251 

the  mouth  and  ear,"  said  Tennyson ;  and,  if  not 
stronger,  certainly  sweeter,  more  beautiful  is 
"Marpessa"  than  "Christ  in  Hades."  Mr.  Phil- 
lips' two  lines  of  introduction  give  the  gist  of 
the  classic  legend  on  which  the  poem  is  based: 
"Marpessa,  being  given  by  Zeus  her  choice  be- 
tween the  god  Apollo  and  Idas  a  mortal,  chose 
Idas."  The  legend  may  be  found  in  the  "Iliad," 
ix.  557  ff.,  in  Ovid,  "Metamorphoses,"  viii.  305, 
and  elsewhere.  The  scene  of  the  choice  is  thus 
brought  before  us : 

When  the  long  day  that  glideth  without  cloud, 

The  summer  day,  was  at  her  blue  deep  hour 

Of  lilies  musical  with  busy  bliss, 

When  very  light  trembled  as  with  excess, 

And  heat  was  frail,  and  every  bush  and  flower 

Was  drooping  in  the  glory  overcome ; 

They  three  together  met ;  on  the  one  side, 

Fresh  from  diffusing  light  on  all  the  world, 

Apollo ;  on  the  other,  without  sleep, 

Idas ;  and  in  the  midst  Marpessa  stood. 

Just  as  a  flower  after  drenching  rain, 

So  from  the  falling  of  felicity 

Her  human  beauty  glowed,  and  it  was  new  ; 

The  bee  too  near  her  bosom  drowsed  and  dropped. 

But  as  the  god  sprang  to  embrace  her,  they 

Heard  thunder,  and  a  little  afterward 

The  far  Paternal  voice,  "Let  her  decide." 

The  rest  of  the  dramatic  idyl,  three  hundred 
and  thirty-five  lines  in  all,  consists  of  the  address- 


252  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

es  of  the  god  and  the  mortal,  each  preferring 
his  suit,  and  Marpessa's  reply.  Some  think  the 
speech  of  Apollo  the  finest  poetry.  The  god  says 
to  the  maiden : 

Thy  life  has  been 
The  history  of  a  flower  in  the  air, 
Liable  but  to  breezes  and  to  time, 
As  rich  and  purposeless  as  is  the  rose; 
Thy  simple  doom  is  to  be  beautiful. 
Thee  God  created  but  to  grow,  not  strive, 
And  not  to  suffer,  merely  to  be  sweet, 
The  favorite  of  his  rains. 

But  he  warns : 

Slowly  shalt  thou  cool  to  all  things  great, 

And  wisely  smile  at  love;  and  thou  shalt  see 

Beautiful  Faith  surrendering  to  Time, 

The  fierce  ingratitude  of  children  loved, 

Ah,  sting  of  stings !    A  mourner  shalt  thou  stand 

At  Passion's  funeral  in  decent  garb. 

The  greenly  silent  and  cool-growing  night 

Shall  be  the  time  when  most  thou  art  awake, 

With  dreary  eyes  of  all  illusion  cured, 

Beside  that  stranger  that  thy  husband  is. 

But  if  thou'lt  live  with  me,  then  will  I  kiss 
Warm  immortality  into  thy  lips; 
And  I  will  carry  thee  above  the  world, 
To  share  my  ecstasy  of  flinging  beams, 
And  scattering  without  intermission  joy; 
And  thou  shalt  know  that  first  leap  of  the  sea 
Toward  me ;  the  grateful  upward  look  of  earth, 
Emerging  roseate  from  her  bath  of  dew. 


Stephen  Phillips.  253 

Since  she  is  a  woman,  Apollo  promises  her 

More  tender  tasks ;  to  steal  upon  the  sea, 
A  long-expected  bliss  to  tossing  men — 

To  lure  into  the  air  a  face  long  sick, 

To  gild  the  brow  that  from  its  dead  looks  up, 

To  shine  on  the  unforgiven  of  this  world. 

Idas,  in  a  speech  which  a  noted  writer  consid- 
ers the  most  impassioned  poetic  address  in  the 
language,  tells  Marpessa  he  loves  her,  not  for  her 
"body  packed  with  sweet  of  all  this  world," 

Nor  for  that  face  that  might  indeed  provoke 
Invasion  of  old  cities. 

Thou  meanest  what  the  sea  has  striven  to  say 
So  long,  and  yearned  up  the  cliffs  to  tell; 
Thou  art  what  all  the  winds  have  uttered  not, 
What  the  still  night  suggesteth  to  the  heart. 
Thy  voice  is  like  to  music  heard  ere  birth, 
Some  spirit  lute  touched  on  a  spirit  sea ; 
Thy  face  remembered  is  from  other  worlds, 
It  has  been  died  for,  though  I  know  not  when, 
It  has  been  sung  of,  though  I  know  not  where. 
It  has  the  strangeness  of  the  luring  West, 
And  of  sad  sea-horizons. 

Marpessa  recognizes  the  bliss  of  immortality 
offered  her  and  all  the  power  to  do  good  and 
soothe  pain,  but  she  says: 


254  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

Yet  should  I 

Linger  beside  thee  in  felicity, 
Sliding  with  open  eyes  through  liquid  bliss 
Forever;  still  I  must  grow  old.    Ah,  I 
Should  ail  beside  thee,  Apollo,  and  should  note, 
With  eyes  that  would  not  be,  but  yet  are  dim, 
Ever  so  slight  a  change  from  day  to  day 
In  thee  my  husband;  watch  thee  nudge  thyself 
To  little  offices  that  once  were  sweet : 
Slow  where  thou  once  wert  swift,  remembering 
To  kiss  those  lips  which  once  thou  couldst  not  leave. 
I  should  expect  thee  by  the  Western  bay, 
Faded,  not  sure  of  thee,  with  desperate  smiles, 
And  pitiful  devices  of  my  dress 
Or  fashion  of  my  hair :  thou  wouldst  grow  kind ; 
Most  bitter  to  a  woman  that  was  loved. 

But  with  Idas  the  mortal,  when  the  first  sweet 
sting  of  love  is  past, 

There  shall  succeed  a  faithful  peace; 
Beautiful  friendship  tried  by  sun  and  wind, 
Durable  from  the  daily  dust  of  life. 

Then  though  we  must  grow  old,  we  shall  grow  old 
Together,  and  he  shall  not  greatly  miss 
My  bloom  faded,  and  waning  light  of  eyes, 
Too  deeply  gazed  in  ever  to  seem  dim. 

Are  not  the  above,  as  the  Blackwood's  critic 
said,  "passages  that  march  with  the  footfalls  of 
the  immortals"?  Surely  they  are  "stately  lines 
with  all  the  music  and  the  meaning  of  the  highest 


Stephen  Phillips.  255 

poetry."  In  the  "Christ  in  Hades"  and  "Marpes- 
sa"  Mr.  Phillips  has  demonstrated  afresh  the  pos- 
sibilities of  classic  legends  as  a  source  of  poetry. 
It  had  been  supposed  that  poets  like  William  Mor- 
ris, Swinburne,  and  the  rest,  had  exhausted  that 
vein,  but  the  genius  makes  all  poetic  material  his 
own.  For  the  style  of  treatment,  quite  as  much 
as  for  his  subject  and  his  allusions,  Mr.  Phillips 
is  indebted  to  the  Greeks.  "The  simplicity  of 
structure  is  antique,"  says  Mr.  Watson,  "and  the 
proportion,  the  symmetry,  the  poise — these  are 
classic." 

I  have  been  asked :  "Is  Mr.  Phillips  true  to  life 
in  making  Marpessa  talk  as  she  does?  Was  she 
not  too  young,  too  inexperienced  to  know  some 
of  the  things  she  says  to  Apollo?"  And  I  an- 
swered: "How  did  Keats  know  at  twenty-five 
some  of  the  things  he  said  ?"  Euripides  was  crit- 
icised for  putting  sentiments  into  the  mouths  of 
some  of  his  women  that  would  better  have  suited 
sages.  Indeed,  it  was  a  philosopher,  the  poet 
Euripides,  thus  expressing  himself  through  the 
mouth  of  a  woman.  But  after  all,  the  essential 
thing,  both  with  Euripides'  nurse  and  with  the 
maiden  Marpessa,  is  whether  the  sentiment  is 
true  to  human  nature,  not  whether  a  maiden  or 
an  old  nurse  might  say  it.  Some  complain  of 
"over-voluptuousness"  in  the  verse ;  that  the  Ian- 


256  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

guorous  sweetness  cloys  the  taste.  If  there  be 
this  defect,  it  is  a  fault  almost  sure  to  be  cured, 
at  least  ameliorated,  as  in  Tennyson's  case,  by 
added  years  and  experience. 

The  drama  Paolo  and  Francesca  is  the  old  story 
of  Guinevere  and  Lancelot,  but  as  delicately  han- 
dled as  in  Tennyson's  idyl : 

To-day  I  take  to  wife  Ravenna's  child. 
Deep  in  affairs  my  brother  I  dispatched 
To  bring  her  on  the  road  to  Rimini. 

Already  we  see  the  trouble  begin,  just  as  in  the 
Guinevere  story,  and  we  know  how  it  must  end. 
Duke  Giovanni,  warrior  and  statesman,  already 
deaf  with  war,  languishes  for  calm.  "I  ask,"  he 
says, 

"Henceforth  a  Quiet  breathing,  that  this  child, 
Hither  all  dewy  from  her  convent  fetched, 
Shall  lead  me  gently  down  the  slope  of  life." 

But  he  is  already  "on  the  slant  of  life."  and  "hath 
a  limp,"  and  "youth  goes  toward  youth."  Fran- 
cesca is  very  innocent  as  yet  of  this  great  life ; 

She  hath  but  wondered  up  at  the  white  clouds. 

She  asks : 

What  is  it  to  be  sad? 

Nothing  hath  grieved  me  but  ancient  woes, 


Stephen  Phillips.  257 

Sea  perils,  or  some  long-ago  farewell, 
Or  the  last  sunset  cry  of  wounded  kings. 
I  have  wept  but  on  the  pages  of  a  book. 

I  am  still  a  child. 

I  feel  that  to  my  husband  I  could  go, 

Kiss  him  good-night,  or  sing  him  to  his  sleep, 

And  there  an  end. 

A  week  later  the  cloud  of  fate  has  drawn  per- 
ceptibly nearer.    Francesca  says  to  Paolo : 

All  here  are  kind  to  me,  all  grave  and  kind, 
But  O,  I  have  a  fluttering  up  toward  joy, 
Lightness  and  laughter  and  a  need  of  singing. 
You  are  more  near  my  age,  you  understand. 

The  plot  thickens  fast.  Francesca  is  too  young 
and  innocent  to  know ;  Giovanni  would  keep  Pao- 
lo- about  himself  and  Francesca ;  but  Paolo  knows 
the  danger.  He  tries  to  fly,  but  comes  straight 
back  to  see  Francesca,  then  will  take  poison  and 
die.  The  rest  of  the  story  is  as  Francesca  told 
it  to  Dante  in  the  "Inferno."  Paolo  and  Fran- 
cesca were  reading  Galahaut's  story  of  Lancelot: 

Many  times  that  reading  made  us  lift  our  eyes  and 
took  the  color  from  our  faces,  but  only  one  point  was 
that  which  overcame  us.  When  we  read  of  the  longed- 
for  smile  being  kissed  by  such  a  lover,  this  one  who 
never  from  me  shall  be  divided  kissed  my  mouth  all 
trembling. 

17 


258  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

It  is  all  told  more  fully,  but  not  so  beautifully,  in 
"Boccaccio."  At  last  it  was  as  old  Angela,  the 
half-seer  nurse,  foretold : 

I  see  two  lying  dead  upon  a  bier — 
Slain  suddenly,  and  in  each  other's  arms. 

Is  it  a  great  drama?  I  do  not  know;  I  am 
only  sure  that  it  is  a  beautiful  poem.  "Poetry 
beautiful  as  any  that  has  been  given  us  since 
Tennyson  was  in  his  prime,"  says  Professor 
Trent.  The  striking  characteristics  shown  in 
"Marpessa"  are  all  here — almost  perfect  diction, 
melodious  verse,  lyric  sweetness,  single  lines  and 
passages  that  thrill  and  linger  with  us.  It,  too, 
is  "sweet  to  the  mouth  and  ear."  But  has  Mr. 
Phillips  the  requisite  intellectual  power  and  moral 
greatness?  It  is  perhaps  premature  to  say,  and 
the  bewildering  sweetness  of  the  verse  makes  it 
hard  to  be  an  unbiased  judge.  There  is  a  Greek 
felicity  of  phrase  and  a  general  air  of  restraint, 
especially  in  the  limited  number  of  characters. 
Only  Paolo  and  Francesca,  Giovanni  and  his 
cousin  Lucrezia,  are  important,  the  last  being 
perhaps  the  distinctest  dramatic  creation  of  the 
poet.  But  while  the  drama  is  restrained,  it  is  not 
austere  like  the  best  Greek  dramas.  It  has  bor- 
rowed from  the  Greek  drama  what  might  be  best 
appropriated  by  modern  poetry;  but  it  is  not 


Stephen  Phillips.  259 

Greek  like  Sophocles ;  it  is  rather  Greek  as  Keats 
was  Greek — restrained  like  the  Greek,  but  with  a 
sweetness  that  is  rather  romantic  than  classic. 

The  play  Herod  is  based  on  authentic  history, 
which  may  be  read  in  Josephus.  The  two  chief 
characters,  and  the  only  ones  of  prime  impor- 
tance, are  Herod,  king  of  Judea,  and  Mariamne, 
his  queen,  of  the  old  Maccabean  line.  Herod  is 
a  masterful  man,  and  bears  a  love  nigh  madness 
for  Mariamne.  These  are  qualities  that  fit  him 
for  tragedy.  Mariamne's  young  brother,  Aristo- 
bulus,  because  of  his  Maccabean  lineage  the  popu- 
lar idol,  and  so  a  menace  to  the  throne,  is  drowned 
by  Herod's  order;  but  in  slaying  her  brother, 
Herod  killed  Mariamne's  love,  and  finally,  goaded 
to  desperation  by  suspicion,  he  condemned  her, 
thus  fulfilling  an  oracle :  "He  shall  kill  that  thing 
which  most  he  loves."  Then  after  a  spell  of  mad- 
ness passed  by  the  Dead  Sea's  shore,  he  returns  to 
the  palace  under  the  delusion  that  Mariamne  is 
still  alive.  At  sight  of  Mariamne's  embalmed 
body,  which  has  been  brought  before  him,  he 
stands  in  a  cataleptic  trance. 

As  a  drama  Herod  is  stronger  than  Paolo  and 
Francesco,  but  here,  as  there,  "the  merit  of  the 
play  lies  in  the  love  passages  and  in  the  truly 
poetic  feeling  and  diction  which  form  the  most 
important  part  of  Mr.  Phillips'  equipment."  It 


260  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

too  is  Greek  in  the  limited  number  of  characters, 
for  there  are  really  only  two  that  profoundly  in- 
terest us,  Herod  and  Mariamne;  though  the  lat- 
ter's  brother,  Aristobulus,  and  Sohemus,  Herod's 
faithful  retainer,  contribute  greatly  to  the  effect- 
iveness of  the  plot  and  to  the  clearness  with 
which  the  protagonist  and  deuteragonist  stand 
out.  But  the  love  passion  of  the  play  is  mod- 
ern, not  Greek.  The  two  greatest  scenes  in  the 
play  are  doubtless  in  act  ii.,  when  Herod  returns 
from  winning  over  Octavius  Caesar  and  is  taxed 
by  Mariamne  with  the  murder  of  her  brother,  and 
again  when  Mariamne  says  finally  :  "Herod,  I  can- 
not change;  my  love  is  dead."  For  stage  pur- 
poses more  effective  still  may  be  the  final  scene 
where  Herod,  only  half  recovered  from  his  mad- 
ness, sends  for  Mariamne,  whom  he  believes  alive. 
Purely  as  literature  the  most  beautiful  single  pas- 
sage in  the  play  has  always  seemed  to  me  that 
where  Herod,  to>  his  mother's  and  sister's  urging 
to  condemn  Mariamne,  replies : 

Would  you  commit  such  beauty  to  the  earth? 
Those  eyes  that  bring  upon  us  endless  thoughts ! 
That  face  that  seems  as  it  had  come  to  pass 
Like  a  thing  prophesied!     To  kill  her! 
And  I,  if  she  were  dead,  I  too  would  die, 
Or  linger  in  the  sunlight  without  life. 


Stephen  Phillips.  261 

Oh,  terrible  to  live  but  in  remembering, 
To  call  her  name  down  the  long  corridors; 
To  come  on  jewels  that  she  wore  laid  by; 
Or  open  suddenly  some  chest,  and  see 
Some  favorite  robe  she  wore  on  such  a  day ! 
I  dare  not  bring  upon  myself  such  woe. 

So  far  as  my  knowledge  goes,  the  critic  is 
right  who  lately  said,  "It  is  the  best  work  of  its 
kind  since  the  death  of  Browning" ;  and,  as  Mr. 
Brownell  thinks,  there  is  "unlikely  to  be  an  Eng- 
lish dramatic  poem  of  equal  interest  published 
until  the  author  of  Herod  writes  another." 

In  Mr.  Phillips'  poetical  work  two  defects  are 
most  apparent.  The  first  is  a  lack  of  lyric  power. 
His  lyrics  do  not  sing.  It  is  blank  verse  where 
he  is  strongest,  and  there  is  to  be  found  "the  lyric 
sweetness  of  his  unrhymed  iambics,"  of  which 
Mr.  Gosse  speaks.  His  lyric  power  is  by  no  means 
that  of  Tennyson  or  Browning,  Keats  or  Shelley, 
and  doubtless  he  will  never  sing  in  such  pure 
lyric  strains  as  any  of  these.  The  second  defect 
is  lack  of  humor.  Even  Shakespeare  wrote  only 
one  play  without  humor,  and  Mr.  Phillips  has 
written  two.  Unless  he  can  remedy  this  defect, 
he  will  hardly  as  a  dramtist  be  ranked  with  the 
greatest.  But  in  the  sphere  of  the  dramatic  idyl 
his  defective  humor  is  not  necessarily  a  fatal  lack. 
Wordsworth  had  no  humor;  his  best  poetry  is 


262  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

characterized  by  high  seriousness  unrelieved  by 
humor,  and  yet  Wordsworth  is  third  in  the  royal 
line  of  British  poets.  At  any  rate,  here  is  real 
poetic  achievement. 

Since  the  foregoing  paper  was  printed,  some  seven 
years  ago,  several  other  poetical  dramas  by  Mr.  Phillip:? 
have  appeared :  "Ulysses,"  "The  Sin  of  David,"  "Nero," 
and  "Faust."  They  are  splendid  spectacles — especially 
the  first  and  two  last — and  as  such  have  been  successful 
upon  the  stage.  Perhaps  a  judgment  now  upon  their 
merit  as  dramas  would  be  premature ;  but  I  cannot  be- 
lieve that  they  will  live  as  literature  as  long  as  "Mar- 
pessa"  and  "Christ  in  Hades."  One  who  knows  and 
loves  Homer's  Odyssey  and  Goethe's  Faust  will  hardly 
care  to  read  often  Mr.  Phillips'  "Ulysses"  and  "Faust." 
The  regret  cannot  be  repressed  that  Mr.  Phillips  devotes 
to  the  stage  of  the  day  genius  that  might  make  poetry 
for  posterity. 


SOPHOCLES. 
Statue  in  the  Lateral)   Museum.   Home. 


XII. 

THE  DISCIPLINE  OF   SUFFERING  IN 
SOPHOCLES. 

"If  a  poet  have  a  soul  as  high  as  Sophocles,  his  in- 
fluence will  always  be  moral,  let  him  do  what  he  will." 
— Goethe. 

"Who  prop,  thou  askest,  in  these  bad  days,  my  mind? 

Be  his 

My  special  thanks,  whose  even-balanced  soul, 

From  first  youth  tested  up  to  extreme  old  age, 

Business  could  not  make  dull,  nor  passion  wild ; 

Who  saw  life  steadily,  and  saw  it  whole; 

The  mellow  glory  of  the  Attic  stage, 

Singer  of  sweet  Colonus,  and  its  child." — M.  Arnold. 

SOPHOCLES,  son  of  Sophillus,  a  wealthy,  or  at 
least  well-to-do,  armorer,  was  born  at  Colonus, 
a  suburb  of  Athens,  495  B.C.,  i.  e.,  thirty  years 
after  ^Eschylus  and  fifteen  before  Euripides. 
His  wise  father  gave  him  the  best  education, 
intellectual  and  physical,  that  Athens  could  af- 
ford, and  he  won  public  prizes  in  both  music 
and  gymnastics.  On  account  of  his  beauty  of 
person,  physical  grace,  and  skill  in  dancing,  he 
was  chosen,  in  his  sixteenth  year,  to  lead  the 
choir  in  celebration  of  the  victory  at  Salamis. 
At  the  age  of  twenty-seven  he  made  his  first 
appearance  as  a  tragic  poet,  in  competition  with 

(263) 


264  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

the  mighty  ^Eschylus.  In  the  persons  of  the 
two  poets,  the  old  and  the  new  were  represent- 
ed; two  rival  policies  were  in  some  sense  on 
trial ;  two  stages  of  tragedy  were  in  competition. 
Party  feeling  ran  high,  and  the  archon  seized 
upon  the  general  Cimon  and  his  colleagues,  who 
had  just  returned  from  Scyros  with  the  bones 
of  the  Attic  hero  Theseus,  to  act  as  judges  of 
the  contest.  They  awarded  the  prize  to  Sopho- 
cles, and  thus  this  favorite  of  the  Muses  became 
with  his  first  effort  the  prince  of  the  Athenian 
stage,  and  remained  so  till  his  death,  sixty-three 
years  later,  or,  rather,  for  all  time. 

He  composed,  according  to  the  best  authori- 
ties, perhaps,  one  hundred  and  thirteen  plays, 
and  won  the  first  prize  twenty  times,  i.  e.,  as 
he  contended  with  tetralogies,  with  eighty  out 
of  one  hundred  and  thirteen  dramas.  He  never 
got  lower  than  second  prize.  In  440,  the  year 
after  the  phenomenal  success  of  his  greatest 
play,  Antigone,  he  was  elected  one  of  the  ten 
generals  of  Athens,  an  experience  about  which 
he  pleasantly  remarked :  "Pericles  says  I  am  a 
better  poet  than  general."  Some  authorities  also 
make  him  a  colleague  in  the  generalship  with 
Nicias  during  the  Peloponnesian  war.  In  435 
B.C.  he  was  one  of  the  steward?  of  the  confed- 
erate treasury.  In  the  year  413.  after  the  Syra- 


The  Discipline  of  Suffering.  265 

cusan  disaster,  he  was  elected  one  of  the  irpo/3ouAoi, 
or  commissioners  of  public  safety,  and  in  this 
capacity  gave  his  assent,  two  years  later,  to  the 
establishment  of  the  Four  Hundred,  that  is,  if 
the  poet  be  the  Sophocles  who  was  Trpd/SovAos, 
which  is  doubtful. 

In  his  old  age,  according  to  tradition,  his  son 
lophon,  fearing  that  he  might  alienate  his  prop- 
erty to  his  namesake  and  favorite,  a  child  of  his 
natural  son  Ariston,  accused  him  of  senile  in- 
capacity. The  aged  poet  replied  to  the  accusa- 
tion by  reading  to  the  court  a  chorus  from  the 
play  he  was  then  composing,  the  famous  ode  on 
his  birthplace,  Colonus,  whereupon  the  judges 
rose  in  a  body  and  reverentially  escorted  him  in 
triumph  to  his  home. 

Supplanting  2Eschylus  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
seven,  it  was  twenty-eight  years  before  he  lost 
a  first  prize  to  Euripides,  and  he  lived  to  put  on 
mourning  at  ninety  for  his  younger  rival.  Be- 
ing, like  Goethe,  beautiful  in  person  and  mind,  he 
was  also  genial  and  gentle  in  disposition,  so  that 
the  satirist  Aristophanes  represented  him  thus 
even  in  Hades — cuKoAos  p.\v  ev0aS',  ei/KoAos  S'e/ceu 
Devoted  to  his  native  city — ^lAa^yatoraTo?  they 
called  him — he,  like  Socrates,  refused  all  invi- 
tations to  tyrants'  courts,  never  quitted  Athens 
except  on  military  service,  and  died  full  of  years, 


266  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

the  best  beloved  citizen  of  Athens,  and  "dear  to 
the  gods  as  no  one  else  was" ;  for  tradition  has 
it  that  Dionysus  twice  appeared  to  Lysander  and 
bade  the  besieger  allow  the  poet's  body  to  pass 
through  the  hostile  lines  to  Deceleia  for  burial. 
His  best  and  truest  epitaph  was  that  by  Phryn- 
ichus : 

Thrice  happy  Sophocles !  in  good  old  age, 
Blessed  as  a  man,  and  as  a  craftsman  blessed, 
He  died:  his  many  tragedies  were  fair, 
And  fair  his  end,  nor  knew  he  any  sorrow. 

After-slander  did  not  completely  spare  him, 
accusing  him  of  a  love  of  sexual  pleasures — a 
charge  that  finds  no  support  in  his  extant  works 
or  fragments — and  of  over-fondness  for  money. 
Both  charges  are  unsupported  by  evidence. 

He  followed  ^Eschylus  in  exhibiting  trilogies, 
but  broke  these  up  into  independent  plays ;  im- 
proved the  scenery  of  the  stage  and  the  costumes 
of  the  actors ;  added  a  third  actor ;  increased  the 
number  of  the  chorus  from  twelve  to  fifteen,  but 
lessened  its  importance  while  enhancing  the  func- 
tion of  the  dialogue.  As  to  his  own  artistic  de- 
velopment, Sophocles  used  to  say,  according  to 
Plutarch,  "that  when  he  had  put  aside  the  tragic 
pomp  of  ^Eschylus,  and  then  the  harsh  and  arti- 
ficial manner  of  his  own  elaborate  style,  he  ar- 
rived in  the  third  place  at  a  form  of  speech  which 


The  Discipline  of  Suffering.  267 

is  best  suited  to  portray  the  characters  of  men, 
and  is  the  most  excellent."  All  his  extant  plays 
belong  to  his  third  style.  One  criticism,  at  least, 
he  made  upon  the  work  of  his  great  predecessor 
and  rival.  "yEschylus,"  said  he,  "did  what  he 
ought  to  do,  but  did  it  without  knowing."  A 
criticism  upon  Euripides  too  has  been  handed 
down.  He  said  ^Eschylus  represented  men  as 
greater  than  they  are,  he  as  they  ought  to  be, 
Euripides  as  they  are.  He  wrote  also  elegies, 
pasans,  epigrams,  and  a  prose  work  on  the  chorus, 
and  he  is  said  to  have  founded  a  society  for  the 
promotion  and  cultivation  of  music  and  dancing 
and  poetry. 

This  is  about  all  that  wre  know,  perhaps  more 
than  we  know  certainly,  about  Sophocles'  out- 
ward life.  All  the  rest  is  implicit  in  his  works. 
He  was  the  greatest  tragedian  of  antiquity.  Im- 
mediate posterity  worshiped  him  as  a  hero.  The 
later  ancients  called  him  the  "Homer  of  Trag- 
edy," and  even  Homer  the  "Epic  Sophocles." 
Homer  was  6  TTOI^T^S,  Pindar  6  Aupucos,  Aris- 
tophanes o  KCD/AIKOS,  Sophocles  6  rpaytKos.  Virgil 
was  his  greatest  Latin  imitator,  and  Ovid  said 
with  prophetic  instinct,  Niilla  Sophodeo  veniet 
iactura  cothurno.  Shelley  calls  him  the  Greek 
Shakespeare,  and  both  Shelley  and  Tennyson, 
"whether  consciously  or  not,  reproduce  with  ex- 


268  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

quisite  effect  the  suggestive  poetical  coloring  of 
Sophocles." 

The  great  poets  have  always  been  the  great 
teachers,  never  so  consciously  this  as  the  great 
Greek  poets.  "The  poet,"  says  Rohde,  "was  to 
be  the  teacher  of  the  people,  to  whom,  in  the 
conditions  of  Greek  life,  there  was  no  other 
teacher  to  speak.  He  was  in  the  highest  sense 
to  instruct  where  his  speech,  in  sublime  poetry, 
dealt  with  the  questions  and  verities  of  religion, 
and  with  the  relation  of  morality  to  religion." 
Aristophanes  recognized  this  when  he  said 
(Frogs,  1054  ff.)  :  "The  poet  ought  to  hide  what 
is  base,  for  the  instructor  of  boys  is  the  teacher, 
but  of  men  the  poets." 

As  a  great  tragic  poet,  then,  Sophocles  was 
also  an  ethical  teacher.  And  what  was  his 
cathedra;  who  were  his  audience?  He  taught 
from  the  Attic  stage,  at  once  temple  and  the- 
ater, and  his  immediate  audience  was  twenty 
thousand  people,  more  or  less.  From  the  mere 
reading  of  the  ddipus  Tyrannns,  the  (Edipiis 
Colon  ens,  or  the  Antigone,  we  can  imagine  only 
in  some  faint  degree  the  effect  on  Athenians 
when  acted  as  part  of  a  religious  ceremony,  the 
audience  being  not  assembled  Attica  only,  but 
representative  Hellas.  Never  before  had  Greek 
poet  had  such  an  opportunity.  Homer's  poems 


The  Discipline  of  Suffering.  269 

were  recited  at  festivals  and  taught  in  schools 
all  over  the  Greek  world ;  Simonides'  epitaphs 
passed  from  mouth  to  mouth  throughout  Hellas ; 
Pindar's  choral  odes  were  sung  in  great  assem- 
blies. But  no  poets  before  the  Attic  tragedians 
had  ever  addressed  such  vast  and  such  cultivated 
audiences  at  one  time,  and  no  poet,  no  orator, 
no  man  has  ever  done  so  since,  or  will  ever  do 
so  again.  And  after  the  great  Dionysiac  festival 
was  over,  the  great  thoughts  of  the  great  tragic 
poets  too,  like  those  of  Homer  and  Pindar  and 
Simonides,  were  repeated  from  mouth  to  mouth, 
and  became  part  of  the  ethical  storehouse  of  the 
Greek  race. 

Though  Sophocles  was  not  conspicuous  for 
"the  sententious  philosophy  of  life  that  endeared 
Euripides  to  the  compilers  of  commonplace 
books,"  yet  the  numerous  fragments,  which 
doubtless  owe  their  preservation  largely  to  their 
ethical  significance,  would  furnish  a  striking  col- 
lection of  gnomic  utterances.  The  Greeks,  from 
the  Homeric  period  down,  are  supposed  to  have 
regarded  truth-telling  less  seriously  than  the 
English  or  the  Germans;  but  for  this  they  got 
no  countenance  from  Sophocles,  who  used  to 
speak  on  this  wise  :* 

*The  quotations  are  from  the  "Fragments,"  and  the 


270  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

"Truth  evermore  surpasseth  words  in  might."1 

"A  righteous  tongue  hath  with  it  mightiest  strength."8 

"Be  sure  no  lie  can  ever  reach  old  age."8 

"Words  that  are  false  bring  forth  no  fruit  at  all."4 

"Deceit  is  base,  unfit  for  noble  souls."5 

"No  oath  weighs  aught  on  one  of  scoundrel  soul."6 

Of  a  piece  with  such  reflections  on  truth  are 
admonitions  as  to  virtue  and  righteousness: 

"What  virtue  gains  alone  abides  with  us."7 
"The  noblest  life  is  that  of  righteousness."8 
"'Tis  better  not  to  be  than  vilely  live."9 

"Hast  thou  done  fearful  evil?     Thou  must  bear 
Evil  as  fearful :  and  the  holy  light 
Of  righteousness  shines  clearly."10 

"Then  does  men's  life  become  one  vast  disease, 
When  once  they  seek  their  ills  by  ills  to  cure."11 

These  quotations  may  fitly  be  concluded  with 
one  of  beautiful  content  and  import,  and  of  uni- 
versal application : 

"Each  day  we  need  to  take  some  forward  step, 
Till  we  gain  power  to  study  nobler  things."  1: 

numerals  refer  to  Dindorf's  edition  (16gi,  2ioi,  8SQ, 
"717,  Bioo,  "671,  7202,  8326,  "436,  10n,  "98,  "779);  the 
translations  are  Plumptre's. 


The  Discipline  of  Suffering.  271 

But  the  poet  had  also  a  strictly  religious  func- 
tion to  perform. 

The  work  of  Sophocles  [says  Plumptre],  following, 
though  with  calmer  tread  and  clearer  vision  and  se- 
rener  speech,  in  the  steps  of  ^Eschylus,  was  the  task, 
finding  the  mythology  of  Homer  in  possession  of  the 
mind  of  the  people,  to  turn  it,  as  far  as  it  could  be 
turned,  into  an  instrument  of  moral  education,  and  to 
lead  men  upward  to  the  eternal  laws  of  God,  and  the 
thought  of  his  righteous  order. 

In  several  particulars  the  popular  theology 
had  already  been  greatly  purified  and  elevated 
by  ^Ischylus.1  The  deep-seated  notion  of  <£>0ovos, 
or  divine  jealousy  of  human  eminence,  so  con- 
stantly reflected  in  Herodotus,  is  displaced  in 
^Eschylus  by  Nc/u,e<ris,  or  divine  justice ;  mere 
prosperity  does  not  produce  calamity.  "Each 
man  fares  according  to  his  deserving."  The 
popular  doctrine,  "The  sufferer  is  guilty,"  is  cor- 
rected by  /Eschylus  into  "The  guilty  suffers" 
(Bpdo-avTi  TraOcLv),  which  saves  the  justice  of  the 
gods  sometimes  at  man's  expense.  The  popular 
belief  in  the  potency  of  a  father's  curse  is  puri- 
fied, in  that  it  is  represented  only  as  pronounced 
on  hardened  offenders.  Still  another  tenet  of 

1For  the  matter  of  this  paragraph  especial  indebt- 
edness to  Professor  Butcher's  chapter  on  Sophocles  is 
acknowledged. 


272  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

the  popular  theology  was  that  of  the  curse  be- 
queathed— "The  fathers  have  eaten  sour  grapes, 
and  the  children's  teeth  are  set  on  edge."  ^s- 
chylus,  like  Ezekiel,  asserted  the  responsibility 
of  the  individual :  "The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall 
die."  He  taught  that  not  guilt,  but  the  tendency 
to  guilt  was  inherited;  and  this  tendency  might 
be  fostered  or  resisted.  Nor  does  this  tendency 
to  guilt  annihilate  free  will ;  it  is  an  act  of  free 
will  that  rouses  the  latent  tendency,  and  sets  in 
operation  "ATT;,  or  the  infatuation  which  makes 
evil  appear  good  and  good  evil  to  the  man  who 
is  hasting  on  to  ruin,  "Any  being  thus  both  pen- 
alty and  parent  of  crime.  So  far  Sophocles  fol- 
lowed in  the  footsteps  of  JEschylus  in  most 
points ;  but  in  some  important  respects  he  made 
a  great  advance,  ^-Eschylus  had  discarded  the 
doctrine  of  vicarious  punishment,  but  still  con- 
sidered suffering  penal.  Sophocles  was  the  first 
of  the  Greeks  to  recognize  that  suffering  may  be 
vicarious,  but  is  not  necessarily  penal.  Unde- 
served suffering  "always  appears  as  part  of  the 
permitted  evil  which  is  a  condition  of  a  just  and 
harmoniously  ordered  universe,"  in  the  Antigone 
vindicating  the  higher  laws,  in  the  (Edipiis  Co- 
loneus  educating  character. 

In    Sophocles    [says    Verrall]    the    struggle    lies    be- 
tween the  free  will  of  man  and  the  law  of  necessity; 


The  Discipline  of  Suffering.  273 

pity  and  terror  are  aroused  by  the  unequal  strife  be- 
tween human  weakness  and  the  higher  powers.  The 
purification  consists  in  the  inspiring  thought  that  when 
once  the  fault  of  mortal  weakness  is  expiated  the 
original  harmony  between  man's  free  will  and  the  di- 
vine law  of  necessity  is  reestablished,  and  the  hero's 
suffering  is  but  the  cleansing  fire  through  which  he 
passes  on  to  godhead."2 

We  shall  consider,  then,  in  this  paper  espe- 
cially the  mystery  of  suffering  as  part  of  a  di- 
vine discipline  ordering  men's  lives  aright,  as 
it  wrought  upon  the  characters  of  CEdipus  and 
his  daughter  Antigone  in  the  CEdipus  Tyrannus, 
the  (Edipns  Coloneiis,  and  the  Antigone.  Here 
again  it  is  a  Greek  proverb,3  -rraOu  /u,a#os  (Tra^/xara 
/ta^/Aara),  wisdom  through  suffering,  which  ^3Es- 
chylus  and  Sophocles  interpreted  afresh,  and  dis- 
covered new  and  deeper  meanings  in. 

The  conviction  grows  upon  me  with  added 
years  and  repeated  readings  that,  while  each 
play  is  dramatically  complete  in  itself,  in  a  wider 
view  of  God's  dealings  with  men  the  CEdipus 
Colon  ens  was,  and  Sophocles  meant  it  to  be,  a 
sequel  to  the  CEdipus  Tyrannus.  "Such  a  trag- 
edy as  the  first  CEdipus  demanded  such  another 
as  the  second."  As  Goethe  in  part  second  of 

2"The  Student's  Greek  Tragedy,"  p.  118.  "JEschylus, 
Agamemnon  187 ;  Herodotus,  i.  207. 

18 


274  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

Faust,  so  Sophocles  in  the  (Edipus  Coloneus 
took  up  again  an  old  theme,  and  in  his  last  years, 
with  a  mind  still  clear,  with  a  faith  more  serene, 
ripened  and  sweetened,  even  if  saddened  by  ex- 
perience, composed  and  left  as  his  greatest  leg- 
acy to  his  people  and  to  the  world  the  story  of 
CEdipus'  purification  by  suffering,  and  of  the  rep- 
aration made  by  the  gods  for  all  that  he  had 
endured.  The  object  of  Sophocles  in  the  two 
plays  is  to 

assert  eternal  Providence, 
And  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  men. 

"And  this,"  says  Professor  Packard,  "he  does 
in  the  CEdipus  at  Colonus  in  a  way  which  makes 
us  wonder  at  the  depth  and  tenderness  and  truth 
of  Greek  theology  in  his  hands." 

The  story  of  (Edipus  is,  briefly,  this :  The 
childless  Laius,  King  of  Thebes,  on  consulting 
the  Delphic  oracle,  was  promised  a  son,  but 
warned  that  he  should  die  by  that  son's  hand. 
When  the  child  was  born,  Jocasta,  his  wife,  sent 
it  to  Mount  Cithaeron  to  be  exposed  to  death,  but 
the  kindly  shepherd  gave  it  instead  to  a  herdman 
of  Polybus,  King  of  Corinth,  and  he  in  turn  pre- 
sented it  to  his  royal  master  and  mistress,  who 
were  childless.  The  boy  CEdipus  ("Swell-foot," 
so  called  because  his  father  had  pierced  his  feet 


The  Discipline  of  Suffering.  275 

and  tied  them  together  with  cords)  grew  to  the 
age  of  early  manhood,  still  reputed  to  be  the  son 
of  the  King  and  Queen  of  Corinth ;  but  taunted 
one  day  by  a  comrade  with  being  a  suppositi- 
tious child,  and  receiving  no  satisfaction  from  his 
parents,  he  went  to  Delphi  to  consult  the  oracle. 
And  there  learning  to  his  horror  that  he  was 
fated  to  kill  his  father  and  wed  his  mother,  he 
sought  to  avoid  the  pollution  by  returning  no 
more  to  Corinth.  On  his  flight  he  met  in  a  nar- 
row way,  unbeknown,  his  father,  Laius,  wrho 
was  journeying  to  Delphi,  got  into  an  alterca- 
tion with  an  attendant,  was  struck  by  the  king, 
and  in  his  fury  slew  all  but  one  man,  who  ran 
away  to  Thebes  and  reported  that  the  king  had 
been  murdered  by  robbers.  Reaching  Thebes, 
he  found  the  sphinx  making  havoc  of  the  people 
because  no  one  could  answer  her  riddle.  He 
solved  it,  the  sphinx  slew  herself,  and  the  people 
rewarded  their  deliverer  with  the  widowed  queen 
and  the  throne.  So  (Edipus  prospered,  and  had 
two  sons  and  two  daughters. 

Just  here  the  (Edipus  Tyrannns  opens.  This 
masterly  play  represents  the  working  out  of  the 
prophecy  to  its  fulfillment,  when  (Edipus  stood 
before  the  world  convicted  of  being  his  father's 
murderer,  his  mother's  husband,  his  children's 
brother.  His  wife-mother  hanged  herself  in 


276  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

shame,  and  the  impetuous  king,  loathing  himself 
as  god-accursed  and  polluted,  tore  the  buckles 
from  her  robe  as  her  body  swung  in  air,  and 
dug  out  his  own  eyeballs,  that  he  might  not  see 
men  see  his  shame,  begging  piteously  the  while 
that  he  might  be  cast  forth  once  more  out  of 
human  society,  as  father  and  mother  had  ex- 
posed him,  an  innocent  babe,  on  wild  Cithaeron. 

O  marriage  rites 

That  gave  me  birth,  and,  having  borne  me,  gave 
To  me  in  turn  an  offspring,  and  ye  showed 
Fathers,  and  sons,  and  brothers,  all  in  one, 
Mothers,  and  wives,  and  daughters,  hateful  names, 
All  foulest  deeds  that  men  have  ever  done. 
But,  since,  where  deeds  are  evil,  speech  is  wrong, 
With  utmost  speed,  by  all  the  gods,  or  slay  me,     . 
Or  drive  me  forth,  or  hide  me  in  the  sea, 
Where  never  more  your  eyes  may  look  on  me.4 

So  the  CEdipns  Tyranmts  ended  amid  horrors 
upon  horrors.  Surely  (Edipus  was  right,  and 
for  him  there  was  naught  to  be  prayed  for  but 
obscurity  and  oblivion.  Yet  even  for  this  god- 
accursed  wretch  Sophocles  was  in  later  years  to 
show  that  the  gods  could  work  out  a  great  re- 
demption. 

'(Edipus  Tyranmts  1403  ff.  All  the  metrical  render- 
ings in  this  paper  are  taken  from  Plumptre's  transla- 
tion. 


The  Discipline  of  Suffering,  277 

In  time  the  storm  of  passion  had  subsided,  and 
CEdipus,  recognizing  that  he  had  been  more 
sinned  against  than  sinning,  had  grown  calmer 
and  content  to  abide  in  Thebes;  but  his  sons, 
now  grown  up,  and  Creon  had  thrust  him  forth 
a  wanderer  on  the  earth,  lest  he  should  bring 
trouble  to  the  city.  Fate  had  still  to  lesson  him 
to  wisdom,  and  so  he  wandered  from  place  to 
place,  sustained  alone  by  the  love  of  Antigone, 
who  was  eyes  and  hands  to  him.  The  CEdipus 
Coloneus  opens  thus : 

Child  of  a  blind  old  man,  Antigone, 

What  country  reach  we?     Whose  the  city  near? 

Who  will  receive  the  wanderer,   CEdipus, 

And  give  him  day  by  day  his  scanty  needs? 

He  asks  but  little,  than  that  little,  less 

Most  times  receiving,  finding  that  enough. 

For  I  have  learnt  contentment ;  chance  and  change 

Have  taught  me  this,  and  the  long  course  of  time, 

And  the  stout  heart  within  me.5 

The  wanderer,  not  old  in  years,  but  by  sor- 
rows and  sufferings  aged,  "of  all  mankind  the 
most  enslaved  to  ills,"  has  brought  his  "wasted, 
spectral  form,  that  once  was  OEdipus,"  to  the  goal 
of  life. 

We  hardly  recognize  him  now  [says  Butcher]  as  the 
man  from  whom  we  parted  in  the  CEdipus  Tyrannus 

*CEdipus  Coloneus  i  ff. 


278  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

in  the  first  transport  of  horror  and  remorse.  His  old 
fiery  temper  is  indeed  still  ready  to  blaze  forth.  But 
suffering  has  wrought  on  him  far  otherwise  than  on 
Lear,  whose  weak  and  passionate  nature  it  unhinged, 
and  with  whom  the  thought  that  he  himself  was  main- 
ly to  blame  embittered  his  anger  and  turned  grief  into 
despair.  CEdipus  has  disencumbered  himself  of  a  past 
which  is  not  truly  a  part  of  himself.  In  the  school  of 
suffering  his  inborn  nobleness  of  character  has  come 
out.  The  long  years  have  taught  him  resignation.  In 
spite  of  troubled  memories,  he  is  at  peace  with  himself 
and  reconciled  to  heaven.  He  has  read  the  facts  of 
his  past  life  in  another  light.  He  has  pondered  the 
ancient  oracles  of  Apollo,  which  predicted  to  him  at 
once  his  doom  and  his  final  rest.  His  inward  eye  has 
been  purged,  and  with  newly  won  spiritual  insight  he 
thinks  of  himself  as  a  man  set  apart  by  the  gods  for 
their  own  mysterious  purposes.  He  bears  himself  with 
the  calm  and  dignity  of  one  who  knows  that  he  is 
obej'ing  their  express  summons,  and  has  a  high  destiny 
to  fulfill.  The  unconscious  sin  is  expiated,  and  he 
who  was  the  victim  of  divine  anger,  the  accursed  thing 
that  polluted  the  city,  is  now  the  vehicle  of  blessing  to 
the  land  that  receives  him.  A  sufferer,  not  a  sinner, 
restored  to  the  favor  of  the  gods,  he  finds  in  that 
favor  and  in  the  honors  that  await  him  an  ample 
recompense  for  all  that  he  has  endured.6 

In  his  young  manhood,  when  Apollo  had  pre- 
dicted the  calamities  that  were  before  him,  the 
god  had  also  promised  him  rest  when  he  should 

e"Some  Aspects  of  the  Greek  Genius,"  p.   127  f. 


The  Discipline  of  Suffering.  279 

reach  "a  seat  of  the  Awful  Goddesses."  (Edipus 
has  had  abundant  experience  of  Apollo's  oracles, 
and  knows  that  the  god  speaks  the  truth.  He 
has  reached  the  grove  of  the  Awful  Goddesses, 
but  the  terrible  Erinyes  have  become  the  Eu- 
menides,  or  Gentle  Ones.  The  place  was  fair 
too,  and  all  was  peace  and  solemn  stillness 
round  about.  Happy  was  it  that  tradition  had 
led  the  woe-worn  CEdipus  to  Sophocles'  own 
birthplace ;  for  the  aged  poet,  as  he  described 
the  spot,  was  doubtless  in  some  measure  voicing 
his  own  heart's  wish  as  to  the  place  where  death 
should  come  upon  himself.  Most  men,  perhaps, 
who  have  any  sentiment,  naturally  long  to  end 
life  where  they  began.  It  is  no  wonder,  then, 
that  in  his  description  of  the  burial-place  and  the 
death-scene  of  the  discrowned  King  of  Thebes 
at  his  own  Colonus,  Sophocles  reached  the  loft- 
iest height  of  his  sublimest  poetry.  It  was,  in- 
deed, a  lovely  spot,  and  about  it,  ever  since  his 
immortal  chorus  sang  its  praises,  there  has  rest- 
ed the  halo  of  an  unearthly  beauty  and  sanctity. 

Of  all  the  land  far  famed  for  goodly  steeds, 
Thou  com'st,  O  stranger,  to  the  noblest  spot, 

Colonos,  glistening  bright, 
Where  evermore,  in  thickets  freshly  green, 

The  clear-voiced  nightingale 

Still  haunts  and  pours  her  song, 

By  purpling  ivy  hid, 


280  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

And  the  thick  leafage  sacred  to  the  God, 

With  all  its  myriad  fruits, 

By  mortal  foot  untouched, 

By  sun's  hot  ray  unscathed, 

Sheltered   from   every   blast; 
There  wanders  Dionysos  evermore, 

In  full,  wild  revelry, 
And  waits  upon  the  Nymphs  who  nursed  his  youth. 

And  there,  beneath  the  gentle  dews  of  heaven, 
The  fair  narcissus  with  its  clustered  bells 

Blooms  ever,  day  by  day, 
Of  old  the  wreath  of  mightiest  Goddesses  ; 

And  the  crocus  golden-eyed  ; 

And  still  unslumbering  flow 

Kephisos'  wandering  streams  ; 
They  fail  not  from  their  spring,  but  evermore, 

Swift-rushing  into  birth, 

Over  the  plain  they  sweep, 

The  land  of  broad,  full  breast, 

With  clear  and  stainless  wave  ; 
Nor  do  the  Muses  in  their  minstrel  choirs, 

Hold  it  in  slight  esteem, 
Nor  Aphrodite  with  her  golden  reins.7 

(Edipus  had  not  long-  to  wait  for  the  promised 
sign  from  the  sky,  a  thunder-peal  from  Zeus. 
It  was  not  death  that  befell  him,  but  translation. 
As  we  read,  we  are  reminded  of  the  end  of 
Enoch,  who  "was  not,  for  God  took  him";  of 


Coloncus  668  ff. 


The  Discipline  of  Suffering.  281 

Moses,  whom  the  Lord  buried;  of  Elijah,  who 
ascended  with  "the  chariot  of  Israel  and  the 
horsemen  thereof."  A  messenger  tells  the  story : 

Yea,  these  are  things  we  well  may  wonder  at ; 

For  how  he  went  from  hence,  thou  knowest  well, 

(Thyself  being  present)  no  friend  guiding  him, 

But  he  himself  still  led  the  way  for  all; 

And  when  he  neared  the  threshold's  broken  slope, 

With  steps  of  bronze  fast  rooted  in  the  soil, 

He  stopped  on  one  of  paths  that  intersect, 

Close  to  the  hollow  urn  where  still  are  kept 

The  pledges  true  of  Perithos  and  Theseus ; 

And  stopping  at  mid  distance  between  it, 

And  the  Thorikian  rock,  and  hollow  pear, 

And  the  stone  sepulcher,  he  sat  him  down, 

And  then  put  off  his  garments  travel-stained, 

And  then  he  called  his  girls,  and  bade  them  fetch 

Clear  water  from  the  stream,  and  bring  to  him 

For  cleansing  and  libation.     And  they  went, 

Both  of  them,  to  yon  hill  we  look  upon, 

Owned  by  Demeter  of  the  fair  green  corn, 

And  quickly  did  his  bidding,  bathed  his  limbs, 

And  clothed  him  in  the  garment  that  is  meet. 

And  when  he  had  his  will  in  all  they  did, 

And  not  one  wish  continued  unfulfilled, 

Zeus  from  the  dark  depths  thundered,  and  the  girls 

Heard  it,  and  shuddering,  at  their  father's  knees 

Falling  they  wept :  nor  did  they  then  fdrbear 

Smiting  their  breasts,  nor  groanings  lengthened  out; 

And  when  he  heard  their  bitter  cry,  forthwith 

Folding  his  arms  around  them,  thus  he  spake : 

"My  children !  on  this  day  ye  cease  to  have 


282  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

A  father.     All  my  days  are  spent  and  gone; 
And  ye  no  more  shall  lead  your  wretched  life, 
Caring  for  me.     Hard  it  was,  that  I  know, 
My  children !  yet  one  word  is  strong  to  loose, 
Although  alone,  the  burden  of  these  toils, 
For  love  in  larger  store  ye  could  not  have 
From  any  than  from  him  who  standeth  here, 
Of  wThom  bereaved  ye  now  shall  live  your  life." 
So  intertwined,  all  wept  and  sobbed :  and  when 
They  ended  all  their  wailing,  and  the  cry 
No  longer  rose,  there  came  a  silence.     Then 
A  voice  from  some  one  cried  aloud  to  him, 
And  filled  them  all  with  fear,  that  made  each  hair 
To  stand  on  end.     For,  many  a  time,  the  God 
From  many  a  quarter  calls  to  him.     "Ho  there ! 
Come,  come,  thou  CEdipus,  why  stay  we  yet? 
Long  time  thy  footsteps  linger  on  the  way." 
And  he,  when  he  perceived  the  God  had  called, 
Bade  Theseus  come,  the  ruler  of  the  land ; 
And  when  he  came,  he  said,  "Ah,  dearest  friend, 
Give  me  thy  hand's  old  pledge  to  these  my  girls ; 
And  ye,  give  yours  to  him.    And  do  thou  swear, 
Of  thy  free  will  never  to  give  them  up, 
But  ever  to  fulfill  what  thou  shalt  judge, 
With  clearest  insight,  best."     And  he,  as  one 
Of  noble  nature,  wept  not,  but  did  vow 
With  solemn  oath  to   do  his  friend's  behest. 
And  this  being  done,  then  straightway  CEdipus 
Clasping  his  children  with  his  sightless  hands, 
Spake  thus  :  "My  children !     Now  ye  need  to  show 
Your  tempers  true  and  noble,  and  withdraw 
From  where  ye  stand,  nor  think  it  right  to  look 
On  things  that  best  are  hidden,  nor  to  list 
To  those  that  speak;  but  ye,  with  utmost  speed 


The  Discipline  of  Suffering.  283 

Go  forth.     But  Theseus,  who  may  claim  the  right, 
Let  him  remain,  to  learn  the  things  that  come." 
So  much  we  all  together  heard  him  speak, 
And  then,  with  tears  fast  flowing,  groaning  still 
We  followed  with  the  maidens.     Going  on 
A  little  space  we  turned.    And  lo !  we  saw 
The  man  no  more;  but  he,  the  king,  was  there, 
Holding  his  hand  to  shade  his  eyes,  as  one 
To  whom  there  comes  a  vision  drear  and  dread 
He  may  not  bear  to  look  on.     Yet  a  while, 
But  little,  and  we  see  him  bowed  to  earth, 
Adoring  it,  and  in  the  self-same  prayer 
Olympos,  home  of  gods.    What  form  of  death 
He  died,  knows  no  man,  but  our  Theseus  only. 
For  neither  was  it  thunderbolt  from  Zeus 
With  flashing  fire  that  slew  him,  nor  the  blast 
Of  whirlwind  sweeping  o'er  the  sea  that  hour, 
But  either  some  one  whom  the  gods  had  sent, 
To  guide  his  steps,  or  else  the  abyss  of  earth 
In  friendly  mood  had  opened  wide  its  jaws 
Without  one  pang.    And  so  the  man  was  led 
With  naught  to  mourn  for — did  not  leave  the  world 
As  worn  with  pain  and  sickness;  but  his  end, 
If  any  ever  was,  was  wonderful.8 

Butcher's  view,  as  given  above,  of  the  purpose 
and  the  effect  of  the  gods'  dealings  with  (Edipus 
is  not  fully  shared  by  some  able  critics.  Jebb 
thinks  the  attitude  of  the  gods  toward  (Edipus 
is  "not  that  of  a  providence  which  chastens  men 

sCEdipus   Coloneus   1586  ff. 


284  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

in  lo/e  for  their  good.  ...  If  such  har- 
mony as  they  concede  to  him  at  the  last  is  in- 
deed the  completion  of  a  kindly  purpose,  it  is 
announced  only  as  the  end  of  an  arbitrary  doom. 
If  it  is  the  crown  of  a  salutary  though  bitter 
education,  it  appears  only  as  the  final  justice 
(1567)  prescribed  by  a  divine  sense  of  meas- 
ure."8 

It  would  be  a  mistake  [says  Jebb,  further]  to  aim  at 
bringing  the  play  more  into  harmony  with  modern 
sentiment  by  suffusing  it  in  a  mild  and  almost  Chris- 
tian radiance,  as  though  GEdipus  had  been  softened, 
chastened,  morally  purified  by  suffering.  Suffering  has, 
indeed,  taught  him  endurance  (arepysiv)  and  some  de- 
gree of  caution ;  he  is  also  exalted  in  mind  by  a 
new  sense  of  power ;  but  he  has  not  been  softened.10 
Rohde,11  too,  protests  against  "the  glorification  of  the 
pious  sufferer  of  traditional  literary  exegesis." 

These  are  weighty  names ;  but  the  view  of 
Butcher  and  of  Symonds  is  that  which  the  whole 
play  always  makes  upon  me,  especially  when 
read  as  a  sequel  to  the  CEdipus  Tyrannus.  Jebb 
is  doubtless  right  in  saying  that  "the  total  im- 
pression made  by  the  play  as  a  work  of  art  de- 
pends essentially  on  the  manner  in  which  the 
scene  of  sacred  peace  at  Colonus  is  brought  into 

"Introduction  to  Gldipus  Coloneus,  p.  xxiv.  ™Ibid., 
p.  xxiii.  ^Psyche,  ii.  p. 


The  Discipline  of  Suffering.  285 

relief  against  the  dark  fortunes  of  Polynices  and 
Eteocles."1  But  the  total  impression  made  by 
a  consecutive  reading  of  the  two  CEdipuses  de- 
pends on  the  manner  in  which  the  scene  of  sacred 
peace  at  Colonns  is  brought  into  relief  against 
the  dark  fortunes  of  CEdipus  in  the  first  play. 

The  great  art  of  the  poet  is  displayed,  the  re- 
ligious significance  of  the  poem  consists  in  this 
especially,  that  the  glorious  end  of  CEdipus  seems 
the  outcome  of  his  long  education  through  suf- 
fering; that  it  embodies  "a  final  justice  pre- 
scribed by  a  divine  sense  of  measure,"  which 
seems  wholly  adequate,  which  reconciles  us  to 
the  previous  seeming  injustice  of  fate  toward 
the  unwittingly,  unwillingly  sinning  CEdipus. 
The  final  impression  on  us  is  satisfying,  sooth- 
ing, softening,  and  fills  us  with  a  sense  of  re- 
ligious awe  and  peace.  "The  sanctity  of  tone 
throughout  harmonizes  with  the  pious,  unassum- 
ing faith  in  a  divine  control.  Elevation  and 
serene  calmness  are  united  to  tenderness  and 
warmth  of  feeling.  The  sorrows  and  melancholy 
of  the  first  part  disappear  at  the  end  in  a  peace 
that  comes  from  the  gods."  If  the  great  lesson 
of  the  CEdipus  Tyranmis  is  v£/*.eo-ts,  that  the  vio- 
lation of  eternal  laws  brings  a  penalty  even  upon 

"Introduction  to  CEdipus  Coloncus,  p.  xxiv. 


286  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

the  unconsciously  guilty,  the  lesson  of  the  two 
plays  is  certainly  irdOu  //.a#os,  -wisdom  through 
suffering. 

Sophocles  deepens  [says  Butcher]  the  meaning  of 
the  Greek  proverb,  "Man  learns  by  suffering"  (Trady/taTa 
fiaOrjuaTa).  He  raises  it  from  a  prudential  or  a  moral 
maxim  into  a  religious  mystery.  He  anticipates  the 
faith  of  Plato,  that  when  a  man  is  beloved  of  the  gods, 
even  poverty,  sickness,  and  other  sufferings  can  turn 
out  only  for  his  good.  The  Gldipus  Coloneus  is  the 
most  perfect  instance  of  the  man  whom  adversity  has 
sorely  tried,  and  on  whom  it  has  had  not,  indeed,  a 
softening,  but  a  chastening  and  enlightening  influence.13 

But  for  one  point  in  the  (Edipus  Coloneus, 
perhaps  all  critics  would  agree  that  (Edipus  had 
been  softened,  as  well  as  chastened,  by  his  suf- 
ferings. The  sons  of  (Edipus  were  as  unfilial 
as  Lear's  (laughters,  but  modern  imitators  have 
felt  it  necessary  to  make  (Edipus  less  unrelent- 
ing in  his  curse.  But  in  the  (Edipus  Coloneus 
he  is  no  longer  simply  the  man  (Edipus.  He  has 
become  a  seer  and  a  prophet,  with  the  gift  to 
foretell  and  the  power  to  curse.  He  is  no  longer 
the  father  Oedipus,  but  the  personification  of  out- 
raged paternal  rights ;  and  thus,  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  will  of  the  gods,  he  curses  his 

13"Some  Aspects  of  the  Greek  Genius,"  p.  125. 


The  Discipline  of  Suffering.  287 

sons  for  their  filial  ingratitude.  "The  Erinys 
has  no  mercy  for  sins  against  kindred;  the  man 
cannot  pardon  because  the  Erinys  acts  through 
him."14  Then,  too,  his  sons,  like  Creon,  were  both 
unrepentant  and  hypocritical,  and  no  sympathy 
would  have  been  expected  for  them  had  they  not 
been  sons.  (Edipus  is  like  Lear  only  in  that  he 
met  with  the  foulest  filial  ingratitude,  and  pro- 
nounced a  terrible  curse  thereon ;  in  all  other  re- 
spects his  spiritual  greatness  widely  separates 
him  from  Lear. 

The  (Edipus  is,  in  part,  a  Greek  treatment  of 
the  Job  problem.  (Edipus,  like  Job,  is  a  man 
overwhelmed  by  calamities  which  he  has  not 
deserved.  Job's  friends  doubtless  expressed  the 
current  view  of  their  age,  a  notion  still  prevalent 
in  Christ's  time,  that  suffering  implied  guilt  and 
pain  meant  punishment.  The  Greeks  of  Soph- 
ocles' day  were  not  wiser.  Job  protested  his 
innocence,  and  God  approved.  (Edipus  was  an 
object  lesson  of  the  same  sort.  His  deeds  were 
involuntary  errors  rather  than  crimes.  He  was 
not,  like  Job,  a  perfect  man ;  he  was  more  like 
Lear,  but  he  was  sinned  against  rather  than  sin- 
ning. "When  eternal  laws  are  broken  by  man," 
says  Jebb,  "the  gods  punish  the  breach,  whether 

14Jehb,   Introduction  to  Oedipus  Coloneus,  p.  xxiii. 


288  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

willful  or  involuntary;  but  their  ultimate  judg- 
ment depends  on  the  intent."*  (Edipus,  with 
advancing  years  and  reflection,  came  more  and 
more  to  the  conviction  wherein  Job  rested  from 
the  beginning,  that  suffering  did  not  prove  guilt. 
"The  unwitting  sin  makes  no  man  bad."1  Job 
was  proved,  CEdipus  was  disciplined,  by  suffer- 
ing. Job,  according  to  early  Oriental  ideas,  was 
compensated  for  his  trials  by  renewed  and  in- 
creased prosperity  and  happiness  in  this  life; 
Sophocles  more  wisely  and  truly  points,  mys- 
tically and  mysteriously,  by  CEdipus'  holy  death, 
to  bliss  beyond  the  grave. 

Sophocles  is  touched  with  the  melancholy  of 
human  life.  This  favorite  of  the  gods  and  of 
the  graces  knew  how  vain  was  human  happi- 
ness. But  he  was  no  pessimist,  did  not  teach 
despair.  His  noblest  characters  find  their  way 
through  suffering,  by  suffering,  to  light  and  life. 
The  road  was  steep  and  hard,  but  it  led  to 
Elysium  at  last. 

As  the  CEdipus  Coloncus  is,  in  the  devel- 
opment of  Gidipus'  character,  a  sequel  to  the 
CEdipus  Tyrannus,  so  is,  in  the  unfolding  of 
Antigone's  character,  the  CEdipus  Coloncus  the 

15Jebb,  Introduction  to  CEdipus  Coloncus,  p.  xxii. 
"Sophocles'  "Fragments,"  582. 


The  Discipline  of  Suffering.  289 

necessary  forerunner  of  the  Antigone.  No  mat- 
ter that  the  Antigone  came  out  long  before,  an- 
tedating even  the  CEdipus  Tyrannus;  we  have, 
all  the  same,  in  the  CEdipus  Coloneus  the  process 
of  development  which  explains  Antigone's  con- 
duct in  the  play  of  the  same  name.  "The  eth- 
ical interest  of  the  play,  so  far  as  it  is  not  ab- 
sorbed by  CEdipus  himself,  centers  principally 
in  Antigone,  whereby  we  are  prepared  for^  her 
emergence  into  fullest  prominence  in  the  tragedy 
which  bears  her  name."  While  still  a  little  girl, 
she  had  seen  her  mother  commit  suicide,  and  her 
father  blind  himself  because  his  unwitting  sins 
had  found  him  out.  Later  she  had  guided  and 
begged  for  and  fed  him  in  all  his  pariah  wander- 
ings, and  stood  by  him  at  his  mysterious  end. 
Born  to  sorrow  and  acquainted  with  grief,  this 
woman  had  got  used  to  making  sacrifices.  Hard- 
ly had  her  aged  father  been  taken,  Moses-fashion, 
from  her  sight  before  her  erring  brother's  body, 
condemned  to  lie  unburied,  a  prey  to  dogs  and 
birds,  appealed  not  merely  to  sisterly  affection  and 
pity,  but  to  religious  scruples  and  obligation,  and 
promptly  she  made  the  sacrifice  of  hope  and 
love  and  life  upon  the  altar  of  duty.  Polynices 
had  been  a  partner  to  her  father's  expulsion 

from  Thebes,  and  consequently  to  her  own  ex- 
19 


290  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

ile ;  but  it  was  her  "nature  not  to  join  in  hating, 
but  in  loving"  ;17  so  she  granted  the  boon  that 
he  asked.  The  brothers  fell  in  fratricidal  strife, 
and  Creon,  the  new  king,  forbade  to  bury  Poly- 
nices,  who  had  fallen  in  arms  against  his  native 
city.  It  was  a  conflict  between  divine  and  hu- 
man authority,  and  the  noble  Antigone  hesitated 
not. 

He  is  my  brother.     .     .     . 

.     .     .     I  go  to  bury  him, 

And  good  it  were  in  doing  this  to  die. 

Loved  I  shall  be  with  him  whom  I  have  loved, 

Guilty  of  holiest   crime.18 

She  was  detected,  and  brought  before  Creon 
to  answer  for  the  violation  of  his  edict. 

Creon. — And  didst  thou  dare  to  disobey  these  laws? 

Antig. — Yea,  for  it  was  not  Zeus  who  gave  them  forth, 
Nor  justice,   dwelling  with  the  gods  below, 
Who  traced  these  laws  for  all  the  sons  of  men ; 
Nor  did  I  deem  thy  edicts  strong  enough, 
That  thou,  a  mortal  man,  shouldst  overpass 
The    unwritten    laws    of    God    that    know    not 

change. 

They  are  not  of  to-day  nor  yesterday, 
But  live  forever,  nor  can  man  assign 
When  first  they  sprang  to  being.     Not  through 

fear 
Of  any  man's  resolve  was  I  prepared 

17 Antigone  523,     18 Antigone  45  and  71  ff. 


The  Discipline  of  Suffering.  291 

Before  the  gods  to  bear  the  penalty 
Of  sinning  against  these.19 

"Nowhere,"  says  Plumptre,  "even  in  the  ethics 
of  Christian  writers,  are  there  nobler  assertions 
of  a  morality  divine,  universal,  unchangeable,  of 
laws  whose  dwelling  is  on  high,  'in  which  our 
God  is  great  and  changeth  not.'  " 

Sophocles'  art  has  made  Antigone's  isolation 
complete.  Her  sister,  Ismene,  sympathizes  and 
admires,  but  Antigone's  deed,  lofty  and  self- 
forgetful  as  it  is,  seems  to  her  the  rashest  folly. 
The  people  secretly  praise  her,  as  one 

Who  of  all  women  most  unjustly, 

For  noblest  deed  must  die  the  foulest  death ; 20 

but  fear  seals  their  lips  before  Creon.  Even  the 
guard  who  had  hunted  her  down  pities  and  sym- 
pathizes ;  but  his  own  safety  is  paramount  to  all 
other  considerations.  Hsemon,  her  betrothed,  is 
alone  ready  to  lend  practical  aid ;  but  he  can  do 
nothing.  Meanwhile,  Antigone  is  like  a  being 
from  another  sphere.  She  belongs  wholly  to  the 
dead,  and  her  thoughts  are  with  father  and 
brother  only.  Even  in  the  presence  of  her  be- 
trothed she  never  once  utters  his  name.  Com- 

18 'Antigone  449  ff. ;  cf.  CEdipus  Tyrannus  863-873. 
20Ibid.  694  f. 


292  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

pletely  isolated,  she  becomes  only  more  stubborn 
in  her  sense  of  right,  and  seems  even  hard  and 
harsh  in  her  refusal  of  Ismene's  request  to  be 
allowed  to  share  her  doom.  Or  was  this  hard- 
ness really  tenderness,  assumed  in  order  to  save 
Ismene  ? 

Indeed  if  I  mock,  'tis  with  pain  that  I  mock  thee.21 

At  any  rate,  the  holiness  of  her  cause  and  her 
complete  isolation  command  our  undivided  sym- 
pathy, and  "her  act  rises  to  a  moral  sublimity 
that  finds  its  parallel  only  in  the  annals  of  mar- 
tyrdom." "She  falls,"  savs  Symonds,  "an  inno- 
cent victim.  .  .  .  She  perished  in  the  cause 
of  divine  charity.  .  .  .  She  is  technically  dis- 
obedient, morally  most  duteous."  When  the  or- 
deal is  past,  she,  who  has  never  weakened  be- 
fore Creon,  becomes  a  simple  woman  again,  and 
bewails  her  unhappy  lot. 

O  tomb,  my  bridal  chamber,  vaulted  home, 
Guarded  right  well  forever,  where  I  go 
To  join  mine  own,  of  whom  the  greater  part 
Among  the  dead  doth  Persephassa  hold ; 
And  I,  of  all  the  last  and  saddest,  wend 
My  way  below,  life's  little  span  unfilled.22 

The  pathos  of  her  unhappy  lot  brings  tears 
from  the  Theban  elders.  "I  can  no  more  keep 

-l  Antigone  551.      "Ibid.  891  ff. 


The  Discipline  of  Suffering.  293 

back  the  streaming  tears  when  I  see  Antigone 
thus  passing  to  the  bridal  chamber  where  all  are 
laid  at  rest."23 

What  is  the  compensation  for  all  this  woe? 
Antigone,  the  innocent  scion  of  a  family  ac- 
cursed, the  purest  flower  of  Greek  womanhood, 
suffers  all  the  wrongs  that  could  be  heaped  upon 
her  in  life  and  in  death.  Does  the  supreme  artist 
of  the  Greeks  simply  content  himself,  as  Herod- 
otus might  have  clone,  with  the  working  of 
Ne/xeo-is  and  "Ar^?  Ne/Aeo-ts  operates  in  the  case 
of  Creon,  and  to  the  chorus  of  Theban  elders 
Antigone  seems  a  typical  example  of  the  opera- 
tion of  *A.rr]  or  the  family  curse. 

Ah !  happy  are  the  souls  that  know  not  ill ; 

For  they  whose  house  is  struck  by  wrath  divine 
Find  that  no  sorrow  faileth,  creeping  still 

Through  long  descent  of  old  ancestral  line.24 

But  of  Antigone,  Sophocles  has  wrought  the 
hopelessly  perfect  ideal  of  Greek  female  hero- 
ism, filial  devotion,  and  supreme  self-sacrifice. 
And  who  can  estimate  the  worth  of  her  noble 
deed  in  uplifting  humanity's  ideals?  What 
makes  us  noble,  anyway?  To  see  a  man  or 
woman  of  heroic  mold  stand  up  in  a  supreme 
crisis  and  do  the  right,  utterly  regardless  of 

^Antigone  803  ff.     2ilbid.  583  ff. 


294  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

self.  People  that  do  such  things  become  the 
teachers  of  the  human  race  to  school  men  to 
morality  and  virtue.  Such  an  act  lifts  itself  out 
of  the  realm  of  morality  into  that  of  religion. 
She  lost  her  life ;  but  in  her  case  death  was  "the 
price  paid  for  undying  honor.  Life  is  not  the 
highest  good.  It  is  virtue's  greatest  triumph  to 
sacrifice  it  to  reverence  to  the  gods,  and  joyfully 
to  lay  it  down  in  the  cause  of  sacred  justice  and 
love  of  those  near  and  dear  to  one:  a  glorious 
fate  that  raises  the  mortal  to  the  divine."21  "He 
that  loseth  his  life  for  my  sake  shall  find  it." 

This  is  the  great  lesson  of  the  drama.  Sopho- 
cles has  felt  his  way  into  the  serene  atmosphere 
that  is  above  self,  where  the  supreme  right  and 
the  highest  duty  are  their  own  reward.  And 
when  we  think  of  it,  Sophocles,  who  is  "the 
only  poet  of  antiquity  who  adequately  grasped 
the  nobility  of  woman's  nature,"  was  unerring 
in  selecting  a  woman  to  furnish  the  extreme  ex- 
ample of  self-sacrifice.  In  the  contemplation  of 
her  deed,  De  Quincey's  apostrophe  does  not  seem 
exaggerated : 

Holy  heathen,  daughter  of  God,  before  God  was 
known,  flower  of  Paradise  after  Paradise  was  closed ; 
that  quitting  all  things  for  which  flesh  languishes, 

2BVerrall,  "The  Student's  Greek  Tragedy,"  p.  212. 


The  Discipline  of  Suffering.  295 

safety  and  honor,  a  palace  and  a  home,  didst  make  thy- 
self a  houseless  pariah,  lest  the  poor  pariah  king,  thy 
outcast  father,  should  want  a  hand  to  lead  him  in  his 
darkness,  or  a  voice  to  whisper  comfort  in  his  misery; 
angel,  that  badst  depart  forever  the  glories  of  thy  own 
bridal  day,  lest  he  that  had  shared  thy  nursery  in  child- 
hood should  want  the  honors  of  a  funeral;  idolatrous 
yet  Christian  lady,  that  in  the  spirit  of  martyrdom 
trodst  alone  the  yawning  billows  of  the  grave,  flying 
from  earthly  hopes,  lest  everlasting  despair  should  set- 
tle upon  the  grave  of  thy  brother.26 

Many  a  woman  does  deeds  just  as  heroic  to- 
day. But  they  have  the  example  of  Antigone ; 
they  have  the  example  of  Alcestis,  of  Iphige- 
nia,  of  Macaria,  of  all  the  Christian  martyrs,  of 
many  a  heroine  of  pagan  as  well  as  Christian 
romance  and  story.  But  who  taught  Antigone 
such  self-sacrifice?  Only  'her  woman's  heart 
and  the  long  discipline  of  suffering.  Many  a 
woman  has  done  the  like,  lately  as  well  as  of 
old;  but  only  Antigone  found  a  Sophocles  to 
immortalize  her  deed,  to  embalm  her  memory  in 
verse  simply  and  austerely  beautiful,  in  perfect 
verse,  which,  as  we  read  it,  produces  the  same 
impression  as  does  some  Niobe  or  Iphigenia 
carved  in  Parian  marble  by  the  hand  of  a  Gre- 
cian master. 

26"The  Antigone  of  Sophocles." 


XIII. 
THE  MAKING  OF  A  SCHOLAR.1 

THE  first  stage  is  finding  the  "lad  o'  pairts." 
One  must  have  the  gift  one's  self  to  detect  it  in 
another,  and  few  pleasures  in  life  are  equal  to 
this  of  finding  the  divine  spark  of  talent  or  genius 
in  a  young  human  soul.  Auld  Domsie  of  Drum- 
tochty  "had  an  unerring  scent  for  'pairts'  in  his 
laddies.  He  could  detect  a  scholar  in  the  egg, 
and  prophesied  Latinity  from  a  boy  that  seemed 
fit  only  to  be  a  cowherd.  ...  It  was  Latin 
that  Domsie  hunted  for  as  for  fine  gold,  and 
when  he  found  the  smack  of  it  in  a  lad  he  re- 
joiced openly.  He  counted  it  a  day  in  his  life 
when  he  knew  certainly  that  he  had  hit  on  an- 
other scholar,  and  the  whole  school  saw  the  iden- 
tification of  George  Howe.  .  .  .  Domsie  sur- 
veyed George  from  above  his  spectacles  with  a 
hope  that  grew  every  day  in  assurance,  and  came 
to  its  height  over  a  bit  of  Latin  prose.  Domsie 
tasted  it  visibly,  and  read  it  again  in  the  shadow 
of  the  fire  at  meal-time,  slapping  his  leg  twice. 

'Literary  Address  given  at  the  Jubilee  of  Wofford 
College,  June  12,  1904. 
(296) 


The  Making  of  a  Scholar.  297 

'He'll  dae !  He'll  dae !'  cried  Domsie  aloud,  ladling 
in  the  snuff.  'George,  ma  mannie,  tell  yir  father 
that  I  am  comin'  up  to  Whinnie  Knowe  the  nicht 
on  a  bit  o'  business.'  "'  .  .  .  "He's  been  playin' 
truant  maybe,"  said  the  father  when  the  message 
came.  But  the  mother's  heart  divined  at  once 
the  truth,  and  she  said,  "It's  naither  the  ae  thing 
nor  the  ither,  but  something  I've  been  prayin' 
for  since  Geordie  was  a  wee  bairn."  Bless  the 
mothers !  If  a  bright  boy  longs  to  go  to  college, 
let  him  confide  his  ambition  to  his  mother,  for 
the  sure  and  easy  way  to  the  father's  purse  is 
through  the  mother's  love  and  pride  and  hope. 
It  is  easy  to  see  why  Scotland  has  so  many  men 
of  mark  in  all  the  walks  of  learning  and  litera- 
ture. "Education  is  a  passion  in  Scotland,"  says 
Froude.  "It  is  the  pride  of  every  honorable 
peasant,  if  he  has  a  son  of  any  promise,  to  give 
him  a  chance  of  rising  as  a  scholar."  "There 
was  just  a  single  ambition  in  those  humble 
homes,"  says  McLaren,  "to  have  one  of  its  mem- 
bers at  college,  and  if  Domsie  approved  a  lad, 
then  his  brothers  would  give  their  wages,  and  the 
family  would  live  on  skim  milk  and  oat  cake,  to 
let  him  have  his  chance."  Happily  such  things 
may  occur  in  Spartanburg,  S.  C.,  as  well  as  in 
Drnmtochty,  Scotland.  Nothing  within  recent 
years  has  touched  my  heart  more  than  to  know 


298  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

that  a  bright  and  ambitious  Spartanburg  boy, 
who  wanted  to  go  to  college,  renounced  all  his 
hopes  and  measured  goods  behind  a  counter  for 
a  dozen  years,  that  a  younger  brother  and  sister 
might  have  the  blessing  which  he  denied  him- 
self for  their  sake.  Ah !  there  is  no  way  like 
auld  Domsie's,  because  his  heart  and  soul  were 
in  the  work.  His  teaching  was  a  sacred  calling, 
a  priesthood  indeed,  and  the  "lads  o'  pairts"  that 
he  found  were  God's  anointed.  "Anither  scholar 
in  the  land,"  said  Domsie,  "and  a'm  thinking  wid 
auld  John  Knox  that  ilka  scholar  is  something 
added  to  the  riches  of  the  commonwealth.  .  .  . 
Na,  na,  the  grass'll  no  grow  on  the  road  between 
the  college  and  the  schoolhouse  o'  Drumtochty 
till  they  lay  me  in  the  auld  kirkyard." 

I  think  in  all  the  grades  of  teaching,  from  the 
kindergarten  to  Harvard  or  Berlin  University, 
no  lot  is  quite  so  happy  as  auld  Domsie's,  the 
man  who  fits  boys  for  college.  I  am  thinking 
this  moment  of  another  Dominie,  himself  a 
Scotchman,  with  gray  eyes  and  sandy  hair,  who 
prepared  my  father  for  college,  and  thirty-four 
years  later  got  me  ready,  too.  He  was  the  only 
teacher  in  the  school,  heard  classes  innumerable 
in  every  subject  from  fractions  to  geometry  and 
Virgil  and  Homer,  and  taught  all  those  subjects 
more  inspiringly  and  successfully  than  any  com- 


The  Making  of  a  Scholar.  299 

bination  of  a  half  dozen  teachers,  each  with  his 
specialty,  that  I  ever  knew  in  any  public  school. 
And  I  think,  too,  of  another  great  teacher  in 
Tennessee,  who  used  to  send  me  pupils  at  Van- 
derbilt,  of  whom  I  would  say,  "My  hardest  task 
is  keeping  students  up  to  such  love  of  Greek  as 
they  bring  with  them  to  college  from  John 
Webb."  And  he  has  taught  for  years  geometry 
and  mythology,  elementary  German,  and  higher 
English,  the  ^Eneid  and  the  Anabasis  and  the 
Iliad. 

The  second  stage  is  going  to  college.  The 
"auld  Domsie"  teacher  will  be  greatly  aided  in 
his  search  for  the  fit  boy  to  send  to  college,  if 
some  former  pupil  who  is  winning  distinction  in 
college  happen  to  visit  the  school.  Edward  Ir- 
ving, who  was  then  winning  honors  at  Edinburgh 
University,  visited  one  day  the  school  at  Annan 
and  was  taken  from  room  to  room  by  the  teach- 
ers. Among  the  boys  was  the  little  eleven-year- 
old  Thomas  Carlyle,  whose  imagination  was  fired 
and  ambition  aroused.  Is  there  any  happier  mo- 
ment even  in  a  long  life  than  when  the  "lad  o' 
pairts,"  approved  by  an  auld  Domsie,  goes  up 
to  college  ?  To  his  imagination,  it  is  a  land  of 
dreams,  peopled  by  bright  and  ambitious  youths, 
where  the  atmosphere  is  charged  with  the  spirit 
and  the  memory  of  the  achievements  of  genera- 


300  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

tions  of  clever  fellows  that  he  has  seen  or  heard 
of,  where  young  men  read  the  great  old  books, 
and  think  again  and  discuss  the  great  thoughts 
in  literature  and  science  that  have  marked  the 
epochs  in  the  world's  progress.  Others  may 
think  of  college  as  the  place  where  they  will  see 
and  know  the  famous  pitcher  or  quarterback 
whose  names  and  pictures  they  have  seen  so  often 
in  the  papers ;  but  the  embryo  scholar  goes  to 
college  as  to  a  place  where  one  has  been  known 
to  read  several  books  of  Homer  or  a  Greek  play 
in  a  clay,  to  read  Demosthenes  on  the  Crown  in 
a  week,  or  to  sit  up  all  night  in  order  to  be  pres- 
ent at  the  catastrophe  of  the  seventh  book  of 
Thucydides. 

One  thing  the  auld  Domsie,  who  has  discov- 
ered the  "lad  o'  pairts"  and  fitted  him  for  col- 
lege, must  still  do  for  him :  he  must  see  that  the 
boy  is  sent  to  a  college  that  has  an  atmosphere 
of  study  and  a  tradition  of  scholarship.  Ah! 
the  joy  of  the  work  there  amid  such  surround- 
ings !  It  is  a  select  society  of  choice  spirits  he 
has  joined  and  holy  ground  whereon  he  now 
treads.  That  at  least  is  what  college  ought  to 
mean.  To  me  the  ideal  college  is  one  like  Bal- 
liol,  at  Oxford,  where  every  man  works  for  hon- 
ors. I  have  no  patience  with  those  fellows  who 
go  to  college  because  they  are  sent  by  their  fa- 


The  Making  of  a  Scholar.  301 

thers,  to  whom  it  comes  simply  as  a  matter  of 
course,  just  as  a  new  suit  of  clothes  in  the 
spring  or  fall,  who  have  not  dreamed  it  and 
planned  and  finally  mustered  courage  to  ask  fa- 
ther if  they  might  hope  to  go  to  college.  If  I 
had  my  way,  all  such  would  be  dropped  soon  to 
make  room  for  the  earnest  fellows. 

But  college  is  the  place  for  the  earnest  worker. 
Contact  with  other  ambitious  fellows  stimulates 
him.  He  soon  becomes  aware,  too,  of  the  silent 
influence  of  the  example  and  habits  of  work  of 
some  professor  to  whom  he  is  drawn,  he  knows 
not  why,  and  whom  he  looks  up  to  for  sympathy 
and  inspiration.  Happily  the  attraction  is  sure 
to  be  mutual,  and  the  crowning  moment  comes 
when  this  instructor  takes  him  aside  and  says  to 
him :  "God  Almighty  has  done  his  part ;  it  re- 
mains with  you  to  do  the  rest;  you  can  be  a 
scholar  if  you  will."  He  goes  out  from  that 
interview  with  wings  on  his  feet  and  his  thoughts 
among  the  stars;  whether  he  walks  or  flies  he 
knows  not. 

I  love  to  plan  for  such  fellows  and  watch  their 
development,  to  suggest  a  course  which  gives 
full  scope  to  a  high  and  laudable  ambition,  and 
see  the  outcome.  Within  recent  years,  three  of 
my  "lads  o'  pairts"  have  gone  to  Harvard.  I 
believed  in  their  capacity,  and  said  to  them :  "This 


302  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

is  what  I  want  you  to  do :  you  enter  on  a  schol- 
arship, let  it  be  next  a  fellowship,  later  Ph.D., 
with  a  traveling  fellowship  to  go  to  Europe 
on.  I  think  you  will  do  it!"  Two  out  of 
the  three  have  done  it.  And  what  is  my  re- 
ward for  this  kind  of  interest?  In  the  first  place, 
to  have  discovered  the  talent  and  to  watch  its 
development  and  triumphs  is  satisfaction  enough. 
Then,  as  Jowett  said,  "Any  one  who  labors 
amongst  the  young  men  will  reap  his  reward  in 
an  affection  far  beyond  his  deserts."  There  is 
nothing  so  sweet,  so  satisfying  to  the  college  pro- 
fessor as  this  homage  from  the  old  fellows  to 
whom  he  has  pointed  the  way.  Besides,  one  can 
turn  this  affection  to  account.  My  Harvard 
"traveling  fellow"  has  written  me  letters  the  past 
year  from  Christiania,  Berlin,  Halle,  Munich, 
Rome,  Athens :  these  I  have  read  to  my  students, 
and  they  have  done  more  than  anything  I  could 
say  to  stir  other  kindred  young  spirits  to  follow 
in  his  footsteps. 

But  there  is  another  class  almost  as  interesting 
as  the  "lads  o'  pairts,"  slow  perhaps,  but  willing 
to  make  up  by  persistence  and  industry  what  is 
wanting  in  quickness,  ready  to  give  two  hours 
where  the  quicker  man  gives  one;  and  that  of 
itself  is  a  kind  of  genius.  What  such  a  one  needs 
is  not  scolding,  but  encouragement.  "Why  do 


The  Making  of  a  Scholar.  303 

you  speak  angrily,  sir?    Indeed,  I  am  doing  the 
best  that  I  can,"  said  a  boy  to  Dr.  Arnold.    The 
Doctor  was  ashamed,  and  remarked  afterwards, 
"I  would  stand  to  that  man  hat  in  hand." 
Wordsworth  speaks  of 

That  best  portion  of  a  good  man's  life, 
Those  little  nameless,  unremembered  acts 
Of  kindness  and  of  love ; 

and  certainly  the  best  part  of  a  man's  teaching 
is  done  when  he  is  not  consciously  in  the  profess- 
or's chair.  It  is  when  he  is  simply  conversing 
with  his  pupil,  both  off  guard  and  soul  commun- 
ing with  soul,  that  virtue  goes  out  of  him  and 
takes  up  its  abode  in  a  younger  human  soul, 
there,  like  good  seed  in  good  soil,  to  germinate 
and  grow  and  bear  fruit  a  hundred-fold.  Above 
all,  it  is  the  force  of  example  that  is  potent.  It 
is  what  the  master  does,  how  he  lives  and  works, 
what  he  publishes  of  the  fruits  of  his  scholarship, 
more  than  what  he  teaches  from  lecture  or  text- 
book, that  impresses  clever  young  men.  I  have 
never  known  greater  devotion  to  the  interests  of 
their  pupils  than  Wofford's  first  faculty  dis- 
played ;  and  yet  it  would  have  been  better  had 
they  made  public,  not  simply  in  sermons  and 
speeches,  but  in  print,  more  of  the  fruits  of  their 
scholarship.  There  was  a  tradition  in  my  day 


304  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

that  Professor  David  Duncan  had  once  prepared 
for  the  press  the  manuscript  of  a  Greek  reader, 
but  was  anticipated  by  the  appearance  of  Jacobs' 
Greek  Reader.  That  tradition  was  something  for 
my  imagination  to  feed  upon;  but  surely  that 
single  unpublished  manuscript  was  not  all  of  val- 
ue that  so  long  and  studious  a  life  might  have 
given  to  a  wider  public  than  Wofford  students. 
Compare  what  is  coming  from  the  press  from  the 
present  professors — notably  the  younger  men — 
with  what  the  "old  guard"  used  to  produce.  The 
new  men  are  hardly  better  teachers  than  those  of 
the  first  quarter  century;  as  gentlemen  and  men- 
makers  we  students  of  the  former  days  can  hard- 
ly believe  the  epigoni  equal  to  their  predecessors ; 
but  they  teach  as  well,  are  making  a  name  for 
Wofford  in  print  as  \vell  as  on  the  platform,  and 
they  are  giving  their  students  an  example  of 
productive  scholarship  such  as  the  faculty  of  our 
day  did  not  give  us.  The  result  will  be  that 
Wofford  will  in  the  future  have  a  still  larger  pro- 
portion of  her  sons  in  university  courses.  It  is 
easy  to  predict  this  when  we  see  that  fifty  out 
of  a  total  of  ninety-three  who  have  pursued  uni- 
versity studies  belong  to  the  past  twelve  years 
(1892-1904). 

The  college  course  is  mainly  a  time  of  getting 
ready,  a  period  of  acquisition,  of  the  study  of 


The  Making  of  a  Scholar.  305 

books,  of  performing  tasks  and  standing  tests  in 
the  way  of  examinations.  It  is  a  glorious  sea- 
son when  progress  can  be  measured  week  by 
week.  It  is  not  the  time  for  specialization,  but 
for  laying  the  foundation  of  broad  and  liberal 
culture.  Just  fifty  years  ago  Macaulay  said  in 
a  report:  "We  believe  that  men  who  have  been 
engaged  up  to  one  or  two  and  twenty  in  studies 
which  have  no  connection  with  the  business  of 
any  profession,  and  of  which  the  effect  is  merely 
to  open,  to  invigorate,  and  to  enrich  the  mind, 
will  generally  be  found,  in  the  business  of  every 
profession,  superior  to  men  who  have  at  eighteen 
or  nineteen  devoted  themselves  to  the  special 
studies  of  their  calling."  We  are  going  the  other 
way  now,  tending  to  special  and  technical  rather 
than  to  liberal  studies,  and  the  result  is  to  be,  I 
fear,  specialists,  experts,  inventors,  more  than 
scholars.  The  college  course,  I  insist,  is  the  time 
for  liberal  studies  and  wide  reading.  If  I  had  to 
do  it  over  again,  I  should  not  study  less,  but  I 
should  read  far  more.  It  is  the  reading  men  of 
college,  as  Mr.  Mabie  said,  who  do  the  big  things 
in  the  world.  When  I  taught  at  Williams,  Mr. 
Mabie's  college,  I  was  struck  with  nothing  so 
much  as  with  the  extensive  general  reading  done 
there ;  and  college  statistics  show  that,  in  propor- 
tion to  numbers,  Williams  has  more  men  of  dis- 

20 


306  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

tinction  in  letters  and  in  public  life  than  any  oth- 
er institution  of  learning  in  the  country. 

This  reminds  me  of  the  chief  need  of  Wofford 
College.  I  felicitate  the  college  on  the  new 
Cleveland  Science  Hall,  and  I  congratulate  the 
donor,  and  my  sometime  colleague  and  friend, 
Professor  DuPre,  on  that  noble  edifice.  But  the 
greatest  need  of  the  college  still  remains.  Your 
neighbor — Trinity — has  recently  received  as  a 
gift  perhaps  the  handsomest  college  library  in  the 
South,  with  a  noble  endowment  to  maintain  it. 
President  Snyder,  here  is  to  be  your  next  work. 
Some  friend  of  Wofford,  alumnus  or  other,  must 
put  here  a  beautiful  and  well-filled  library.2  Wof- 
ford's  traditions  of  scholarship  demand  it.  Her 
bright  youth  will  not,  should  not,  continue  to 
come  and  stay  unless  you  give  them  books;  for 
to  a  college  no  equipment  of  laboratories  and 
apparatus  is  so  important  as  a  good  library. 

I  repeat,  then,  if  I  could  do  it  all  over  again,  I 
would  read  much  and  study  hard  while  in  college. 
Does  some  one  object,  once  more,  that  the  hard 
workers,  the  "honor  men,"  rarely  do  anything  in 
after  life?  There  never  was  a  greater  fallacy. 

2The  friend  has  been  found  in  the  daughter  of  Dr. 
Whitefoord  Smith,  for  nearly  forty  years  Professor  of 
English  Literature  in  Wofford,  and  Mr.  Carnegie  has 
augmented  her  gift. 


The  Making  of  a  Scholar.  307 

Macaulay  was  right  when  he  said  that  usually 
"those  who  are  first  in  the  competitions  of  the 
schools  are  first  in  the  competitions  of  the  world." 
"Men  who  distinguish  themselves  in  their  youth 
above  their  contemporaries,"  says  Macaulay,  "al- 
most always  keep  to  the  end  of  their  lives  the 
start  which  they  have  gained.  .  .  .  Take  down 
in  any  library  the  Cambridge  calendar.  There 
you  have  the  list  of  honors  for  a  hundred  years. 
Look  at  the  list  of  wranglers  and  of  junior 
optimes;  and  I  will  venture  to  say  that,  for  one 
man  who  has  in  after  life  distinguished  himself 
among  the  junior  optimes,  you  will  find  twenty 
among  the  wranglers.  Take  the  Oxford  calen- 
dar and  compare  the  list  of  first-class  men  with 
an  equal  number  of  men  in  the  third  class." 
Goldwin  Smith  said  recently  that  England  has 
been  governed  for  fifty  years  by  Oxford  "honor 
men."  Sir  Robert  Peel,  Lord  Derby,  and  Mr. 
Gladstone  were  all  double  first  class  men  at  the 
university. 

Recently  two  notable  articles  have  appeared 
(E.  G.  Dexter  in  Popular  Science  and  A.  Law- 
rence Lowell  in  the  Atlantic)  showing  by  college 
statistics  that  the  honors  of  life  come  to  those 
who  study  hard  at  college.  Of  the  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  graduates  of  twenty-two  colleges,  as 
against  ordinary  graduates,  the  proportion  of 


308  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

men  who  have  gained  the  distinction  of  a  place  in 
"Who's  Who  in  America"  is  3.1.  In  two  large 
New  England  colleges,  of  all  living  graduates, 
2.2  had  achieved  "Who's  Who"  success,  whereas 
of  the  first  tenth  the  proportion  was  5.4.  At  Har- 
vard, from  1869  to  1887,  the  proportions  are : 
of  total  graduates,  I  in  14.46;  of  first  seventh, 
I  in  7.05 ;  of  first  scholars,  I  in  2.71 ;  of  first  four 
scholars,  I  in  4.75 ;  of  Bowdoin  prize  men,  I  in 
4.94;  of  special  honors  men,  I  in  5.28;  of  highest 
special  honors  men,  I  in  2.89. 

But  the  athlete  is  a  far  more  prominent  figure 
in  college  nowadays  than  the  scholar,  and  great 
claims  are  made  as  to  the  advantage  his  healthy 
body  and  his  training  will  give  him  in  the  com- 
petitions of  after  life.  Well,  what  do  the  figures 
say?  We  have  Harvard  statistics.  Of  the  crews. 
1861-1898,  none  won  a  Bowdoin  prize  or  stood 
in  first  seventh,  and  only  one  took  special  honors 
in  any  subject.  For  the  crew,  the  "Who's  Who" 
proportion  is  i  in  13.66,  i.  e.,  about  the  chance  of 
the  average  student.  For  crew  captains,  the 
proportion  is  i  in  5.66,  i.  e.,  about  the  chance  of 
high  scholars.  Of  baseball  men,  1872-1898,  no 
one  won  a  Bowdoin,  one  was  in  first  seventh,  one 
gained  special  honors ;  proportion  in  "Who's 
Who,"  i  in  14.50.  But  this  proportion  is  due  to 
the  fact  that  six  out  of  the  nine  "Who's  Who" 


The  Making  of  a  Scholar.  309 

men  belonged  to  the  classes  from  1866-1869. 
Since  1872,  "the  scholars  have  ceased  to  play  ball 
or  the  nine  have  ceased  to  study."  Of  football 
men,  1874-1898,  out  of  one  hundred  and  forty- 
eight  men,  two  took  special  honors,  two  a  Bow- 
doin,  two  were  in  first  seventh ;  but  it  was  two 
men  that  took  all  three  honors.  The  proportion 
in  "Who's  Who"  was  i  in  31.  The  statistics,  then, 
tend  to  show  that  the  chance  of  distinction  for 
the  crew  man  is  about  equal  to  that  of  the  aver- 
age graduate,  of  the  crew  captain  far  greater, 
but  for  the  baseball  or  football  men  it  is  far  less 
than  for  the  average  graduate. 

The  next  stage  is  the  university  course.  I  had 
to  be  a  sort  of  pioneer  at  Wofford  thirty  years 
ago  in  the  matter  of  going  on  to  graduate  work. 
To  you  it  is  all  easy  now,  for  there  is  a  university 
tradition.  Every  member  of  your  younger  facul- 
ty has  studied  for  a  longer  or  shorter  period  at 
some  American  or  foreign  university,  and  many 
men  who  once  studied  here  have  won  high  hon- 
ors elsewhere.  When  I  was  getting  ready  to 
go  to  Harvard,  Dr.  Whitefoord  Smith  told  me  of 
McLeod,  the  one-armed  ex-Confederate  soldier, 
who  had  studied  privately  at  Wofford  just  be- 
fore it  reopened  after  the  war.  At  Harvard  I 
found  that  everybody  knew  about  McLeod.  He 
had  graduated  there  some  four  years  before  and 


310  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

was  then  in  Europe,  but  his  memory  was  fresh. 
He  had  entered  with  all  the  conditions  the  law 
allows,  but  had  gone  to  the  head  of  the  class  in 
his  first  year  and  had  graduated  with  the  high- 
est marks  ever  made  there — first  in  the  long  line 
of  graduates  for  two  hundred  and  sixty-eight 
years.  Some  years  later,  young  Begg,  who  once 
lived  with  his  widowed  mother  by  the  railway 
bridge  on  Church  street,  found  his  way  to  Yale 
and  graduated  with  the  highest  marks  ever  won 
there — first  in  two  hundred  years.  So  there 
have  gone  directly  from  Spartanburg,  if  not  from 
Wofford,  the  two  men  who  stand  first  in  rank 
in  the  long  lines  of  graduates  of  Harvard  and 
Yale,  respectively.  That  is  now  part  of  your 
scholarly  tradition.  Still  more  definitely  part  of 
it  are  your  own  fellows  who  have  gone  on  to  uni- 
versity work.  Dr.  Kirkland  tells  of  an  occasion 
during  his  college  clays,  when  news  had  just  been 
received  of  some  success  won  by  a  Wofford  stu- 
dent at  Vanderbilt,  "Dr.  Carlisle,  in  mentioning 
the  fact  to  the  students,  added  that  such  an- 
nouncements would  not  be  made  in  the  future, 
but  that  it  would  be  taken  for  granted  that  Wof- 
ford boys  would  take  all  the  prizes  they  chose  to 
compete  for  at  other  institutions."  That  is  the 
way  traditions  of  scholarship  are  made.  Dr. 
Kirkland  himself  is  now  the  most  brilliant  point 


The  Making  of  a  Scholar.  311 

in  that  line  of  tradition.  He  got  his  inspiration 
here,  planned  it  all  out  here,  worked  here  four 
or  five  years,  saving  money  to  go  to  Germany. 
How  well  I  remember  his  first  letter  from  Leip- 
zig! "It  is  glorious!"  he  said.  "It  is  what  I 
have  been  longing  for  all  these  years."  And 
there  are  others  that  followed — Henneman, 
Wightman,  Perrin  Smith,  Few,  Muckenfuss, 
Rembert,  Wallace,  Waller,  Hollis,  Wolf,  and  so 
on.  These  have  made  it  easy  for  you  to  follow, 
for  it  is  now  a  well-blazed  path  fast  getting  to 
be  a  highway,  that  leads  from  Wofford  to  Van- 
derbilt  and  the  University  of  Virginia,  to  Har- 
vard and  Johns  Hopkins,  to  Leipzig  and  Berlin. 

How  I  came  to  take  the  great  first  step,  to  de- 
termine upon  a  university  course,  I  cannot  quite 
say.  There  were  no  university  traditions  here 
then ;  no  Wofford  man  of  my  acquaintance  had 
done  it.  When  I  finished  college,  I  knew  that  I 
did  not  know  anything;  dread  of  the  monotony 
and  drudgery  of  merely  teaching  school  did  the 
rest.  My  choice  of  a  university  fell  not  unnatu- 
rally upon  Harvard.  It  was  the  oldest  American 
seat  of  learning  and  ranked  perhaps  as  the  best. 
I  went,  and  found  there  all  that  was  advertised, 
and  something  that  was  not  in  the  catalogue.  I 
found  what  I  had  not  especially  thought  of,  that 
it  was  perhaps  the  chief  gathering  place  of  the 


312  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

best  young  talent  from  all  over  the  country. 
Two  or  three  years  later,  Johns  Hopkins,  starting 
as  the  first  real  American  university,  had  at  once 
unprecedented  and  phenomenal  success  in  becom- 
ing a  center  for  the  best  talent,  both  in  faculty 
and  students;  but  I  was  before  Johns  Hopkins' 
day.  I  went  to  Harvard,  and  all  the  rest  fol- 
lowed. Many  there  had  studied  abroad;  there 
were  many  scholars  of  national,  some  of  interna- 
tional, reputation,  and  I  studied  under  some  of 
these.  Professor  Goodwin  was  away  in  Italy; 
but  Frederick  D.  Allen  was  there — "the  most 
German  of  them  all,"  as  one  of  his  colleagues 
called  him — and  I  had  courses  under  him,  as  un- 
der Child  in  English,  and  Lane  in  Latin.  The 
man  who  taught  me  most  at  the  time  was  an  in- 
structor in  German,  George  A.  Bartlett;  but  the 
one  who  influenced  me  above  all  was  F.  D.  Allen. 
Meeting  me  one  day  on  the  Harvard  grounds, 
he  said  abruptly :  "You  must  go  to  Germany ;  if 
you  want  to  be  a  scholar,  you  must  go  to  Ger- 
many !"  That  had  been  the  dream  of  my  youth, 
but  how  was  I  to  do  it  ?  The  remark  stuck,  and 
I  brooded  over  it  till  one  night  when,  walking 
with  Patton,  a  senior  from  North  Carolina,  who 
had  spent  a  year  in  Europe,  working  his  way 
over  there  as  he  had  worked  his  way  at  Harvard, 
he  said  to  me :  "You  can  go  to  Germany  if  you 


The  Making  of  a  Scholar.  313 

want  to ;  it  will  not  cost  you  any  more  there  than 
here."  That  practically  settled  it.  I  spent  at 
Harvard  only  six  months ;  but  it  was  the  epoch  of 
my  life.  The  intellectual  atmosphere  was  a  tonic 
to  me ;  the  presence  of  real  scholars  inspired  me ; 
association  with  some  able  and  aspiring  fellow- 
students  helped  me ;  I  seemed  to  be  charged  with 
some  sort  of  electrical  influence  which  kept  me 
alert  and  enabled  me  to  work  at  high  pressure. 
I  went  to  bed  every  night  as  the  clock  of  the 
Unitarian  Church  on  Harvard  Square  struck 
twelve,  and  rose  at  seven,  spurred  on  by  keen 
ambition,  and  full  of  joy  in  my  work.  I  was 
there  again  last  July  for  the  first  time  in  twenty- 
nine  years.  I  stayed  in  Quincy  street,  just  oppo- 
site President  Eliot's,  and  that  first  night  I  walked 
round  Harvard  Square,  feeling  more  than  seeing 
the  old  places,  calling  back  the  old  scenes. 

I  went  in  the  summer  of  1874  to  Leipzig,  and 
there  all  sorts  of  influences  drew  me  toward  schol- 
arship. Germany  is  the  land  of  Wissenschaft.  I 
heard  lecture  at  Leipzig  and  Berlin  some  world- 
renowned  scholars — the  Curtius  brothers,  Ritschl, 
Kirchhoff,  Hermann  Grimm,  and  once  I  saw 
Mommsen.  But  what  I  got  out  of  my  first  trip 
abroad,  as  I  now  look  back  at  it,  was  chiefly  the 
acquisition  of  the  German  language  and  the  gen- 
eral expansion  of  my  intellectual  and  spiritual 


314  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

horizon — what  I  saw  and  experienced  in  Leipzig, 
in  Berlin,  in  Switzerland,  in  Italy.  For  that  pe- 
riod, I  think  I  got  more  out  of  contact  with  aspir- 
ing young  men  of  my  own  age  than  from  great 
professors,  for  I  was  not  yet  ready  for  the  best 
the  latter  could  do  for  me.  At  Wofford,  I  stood 
for  Spartanburg  and  knew  only  South  Carolin- 
ians, though  many  of  these  were  the  old  war  fel- 
lows; at  Harvard  I  stood  for  South  Carolina 
and  met  men  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  my 
especial  friends  being  from  Massachusetts,  North 
Carolina,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Louisiana,  New 
York,  Mississippi ;  in  Germany  I  represented 
North  America  and  met  some  picked  young  men 
from  many  countries — the  United  States,  Ger- 
many, England,  Greece,  Italy.  At  George  Cur- 
tius'  first  lecture,  Baskervill  and  I  sat  together 
near  the  front.  The  room  was  crowded.  Just 
before  the  great  scholar  appeared,  a  man  at  my 
right  said  to  me.  by  way  of  introduction,  "I  am 
Lovell,  from  Wisconsin."  "And  I  am  Smith, 
from  South  Carolina,"  I  replied.  "Then  let  me 
introduce  you  to  Professor  Walter,  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Michigan,"  said  he.  "And  let  me  in- 
troduce you,"  I  replied,  "to  Mr.  Baskervill,  of 
Tennessee."  You  may  guess  that  was  a  cosmo- 
politan asemblage.  What  such  association  might 
mean  to  me  vou  realize  when  I  tell  YOU  that  then, 


The  Making  of  a  Scholar.  315 

and  still  more  in  my  second  university  period  five 
years  later,  I  was  thrown  with  Baskervill,  of  Van- 
derbilt;  Caspar  Rene  Gregory,  for  many  years 
now  professor  in  Leipzig  University;  Samuel 
Ives  Curtiss,  of  Chicago  Theological  Seminary; 
Sihler,  of  New  York  University ;  Primer,  of  Tex- 
as University;  Paul  Cauer,  the  Homeric  scholar 
of  Germany ;  Bloomfield,  of  John  Hopkins ;  Carl 
Roethe,  the  Germanist  of  Gottingen ;  Lyon,  of 
Harvard ;  Green,  of  William-Jewell  College ; 
Hopkins,  of  Yale ;  Smyth,  of  Harvard ;  Birge,  of 
Wisconsin ;  Genung,  of  Amherst ;  Latimer,  of 
Davidson;  Kerfoot,  of  Louisville  Theological 
Seminary. 

The  university  stadium  is  the  time  when  the 
young  man  has  complete  Lernfreiheit — that  is, 
he  studies  what  he  likes ;  and  he  specializes  now 
because  he  has  found  his  vocation  and  is  prepar- 
ing for  it.  The  personal  relation  between  pupil 
and  master  is  here  even  more  important  than  be- 
fore. The  young  man  does  not  need  now  to  be 
led,  but  to  have  opportunity  to  form  himself,  per- 
haps unconsciously,  on  a  good  model.  To  inspire 
your  student  with  the  desire  to  become  a  scholar 
is  to  do  him  a  great  service;  to  show  him  how 
to  do  it  unconsciously  by  your  own  habits  of  work 
is  to  do  him  a  boundless  favor.  The  great  Ger- 
man university  professor  has  two  things  always 


316  Reminiscences  and  Sketches, 

in  mind:  one  is  his  Wissenschaft,  his  science  or 
special  field  of  work;  the  other  is  finding  among 
his  pupils  some  men  of  extraordinary  talent  who 
shall  hand  on  the  torch  of  learning.  He  may  lec- 
ture to  a  large  number,  but  he  lets  only  a  select 
few  into  his  inner  circle,  his  Seminar  or  Gesell- 
schaft,  and  of  these  he  consecrates  a  very  few  to 
carry  on  his  special  work.  "Ritschl  hat  drei  von 
seinen  Schuelern  in  seine  Methode  eingeweiht," 
said  Lange,  one  day  in  a  lecture.  (He  has  con- 
secrated three  of  his  pupils  to  his  method.)  Con- 
secrate is  a  fitting  term  for  one  who  is  to  under- 
take a  great  work  of  scholarship.  It  is  like  set- 
ting a  man  apart  for  a  priesthood.  Now  is  the 
time  the  master  shows  his  power.  I  remember 
hearing  two  men  at  different  times  give  very  di- 
verse estimates  of  Professor  Whitney,  as  a 
teacher.  "He  was  a  poor  instructor,"  said  one, 
who  had  been  a  sophomore  saying  "required"  les- 
sons in  German  to  Whitney.  "He  was  the  great- 
est teacher,  the  most  inspiring  influence  I  ever 
came  under,"  said  the  other,  who  had  gone  as  a 
graduate  student  to  Yale  to  study  Sanskrit  and 
Comparative  Philology  under  one  of  the  world's 
great  masters. 

The  last  stage  of  the  evolution.  Our  young 
scholar  has  now  got  his  impulse,  received  his 
training,  has  won  his  Ph.D.,  has  found  a  place 


The  Making  of  a  Scholar.  317 

to  teach  and  earn  his  bread ;  what  more  ?  He 
must  mix  with  other  and  older  scholars,  attend 
the  linguistic  or  scientific  or  historical  associa- 
tions, for  the  sake  of  contact  with  and  impulse 
from  other  wrorkers.  He  will  find  this  the  most 
helpful  and  stimulating  thing  in  the  world,  not 
necessarily  the  papers  he  hears  there,  but  the  men 
he  meets.  The  bearing  of  some  of  the  masters  of 
his  science  may  furnish  him  a  good  lesson.  For 
instance,  I  remember  that  at  the  first  meeting  of 
the  Philological  Association  I  ever  attended,  the 
only  two  men  who  sat  out  every  session  and 
heard  every  paper  were  the  Nestors  of  the  Asso- 
ciation, W.  D.  Whitney  and  F.  A.  March.  And 
while  he  is  getting  so  much  himself,  the  young- 
scholar  may  possibly  have  the  good  luck  to  win 
recognition  from  some  great  authority.  Freder- 
ick Allen  went  up  from  Knoxville,  Tenn.,  to 
read  a  paper  at  New  Haven  in  1889,  and  James 
lladley  predicted  of  him,  "The  coming  philologist 
of  America."  To  Frederick  Allen  that  was  like 
Goethe's  recognition  of  Carlyle  across  the  Ger- 
man Ocean  as  a  "new  moral  force  the  outcome 
of  which  it  is  impossible  to  predict."  What  a 
privilege  it  is  to  have  made  such  a  discovery  of 
a  scholar  or  a  writer,  and  what  a  boon  is  such 
recognition  to  the  man  discovered !  The  aspir- 
ing young  soul  needs  nothing  so  much  as  the 


318  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

assurance  from  some  greater  man — "I  believe  in 
you !" 

Having  a  place  in  which  to  earn  his  bread — 
and  it  is  important  not  so  much  that  the  first 
place  be  a  big  one  as  that  he  fill  it  well — he  must 
contrive  to  be  at  once  an  efficient  teacher  and  a 
productive  worker.  Fortunately,  there  is  no  con- 
tradiction here.  His  pupils  need  not  be  defrauded 
if  he  makes  investigations  and  publishes  papers, 
for  usually  the  most  productive  worker  is  also  the 
most  inspiring  teacher. 

But  not  only  must  there  be  productive  work ; 
some  large  work  must  be  undertaken.  The  new 
president  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  himself 
one  of  our  foremost  scientific  investigators,  ex- 
pressed the  idea  recently  in  a  talk  to  the  faculty : 

A  scholar  should  plan  early  some  large  work.  One 
may  take  up  a  subject  and  produce  a  doctor's  thesis, 
then  another  doctor's  thesis,  and  another,  for  a  dozen 
years.  That  is  spasmodic  work,  and  men  who  do  only 
spasmodic  work  rarely  do  great  work.  Such  men  cross 
the  dead  line  beyond  which  it  is  impossible  to  do  great 
work  without  knowing  it,  some  at  forty,  some  at  fifty. 
But  men  who  do  a  great  piece  of  work  generally  have 
it  planned  early,  some  at  forty,  some  at  thirty-five,  some 
at  thirty.  When  the  great  work  is  undertaken,  a  work 
of  years,  less  may  be  published  for  a  time,  but  the  final 
results  tell. 

President  Van  Hise  never  studied  in  Germany, 


The  Making  of  a  Scholar.  319 

but  that  is  precisely  the  German  university  idea. 
Germany  is  the  land  of  monographs  and  learned 
papers,  and  there  are  more  technical  periodicals 
in  that  country  than  in  all  the  rest  of  the  world 
perhaps;  but  every  university  scholar  has  his 
Hauptwerk,  on  which  his  reputation  mainly  rests, 
and  his  chief  course,  for  which  students  resort  to 
him  not  only  from  other  German  universities,  but 
from  foreign  lands. 

Large  scholarly  tasks  need  time  and  patience; 
the  biggest  are  the  work  of  a  lifetime.  I  remem- 
ber how  I  was  impressed  twelve  years  ago  by  a 
remark  of  the  young  scholar  Gonzalez  Lodge, 
made  at  Charlottesville.  "It  is  refreshing  to  see 
a  man  pursuing  a  large  subject  like  a  German," 
said  he,  referring  to  some  studies  in  Thucydides 
that  had  begun  to  appear  at  the  annual  meetings 
of  the  Philological  Association.  The  remark 
characterized  more  Lodge  himself  than  the  other. 
Nothing  large  has  yet  come  from  the  Thucydides 
studies,  but  the  first  installment  of  a  great  Plau- 
tus-Lexicon  was  issued  by  Professor  Lodge  a 
year  or  so  ago,  and  the  classical  scholars  of  New 
York  expressed  their  appreciation  of  this  earnest 
of  an  epoch-making  work  by  giving  the  author  a 
public  dinner.  It  will  take  a  lifetime  to  complete, 
but  it  is  exhaustive  in  scope  and  will  be  the  en- 
during monument  of  its  author. 


320  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

What  America  most  needs  is  genuine  scholars. 
men  of  scholarly  spirit,  of  such  enthusiasm  for 
the  discovery  of  truth  as  to  be  willing  to  make 
any  sacrifice  for  it,  who  form  large  plans  and 
live  up  to  them.  Such  scholarly  work  may  be, 
and  generally  is,  a  sort  of  forty  years  in  the  wil- 
derness, during  which  there  is  no  popular  ap- 
plause, with  only  one's  plan  of  work  as  a  pillar 
of  smoke  by  day  and  a  pillar  of  fire  by  night  to 
lead  on  to  the  promised  land.  But  all  else  is  in- 
significant in  view  of  the  goal.  In  every  insti- 
tution of  any  size  in  the  country  there  are  three 
classes  of  scholars.  Some  are  merely  masquerad- 
ing as  such,  deceiving  others  and  possibly  them- 
selves— avoid  these  as  you  would  the  plague ! 
Others  there  are,  and  possibly  a  majority,  who 
are  filled  with  scholarly  ideals,  but  live  and  die 
without  attaining  them.  Of  this  second  class 
perhaps  I  may  claim  to  be.  But  I  sing  with 
Browning, 

What  I  aspired  to  be, 
And  was  not,  comforts  me. 

But  there  are  still  others,  and  the  smallest  class. 
who  have  scholarly  ambitions  and  ideals,  live  up 
to  them,  and  reach  their  goal :  they  are  God's 
anointed,  and  happy  are  young  men  who  come 
under  the  influence  of  these.  And  what  are  the 


The  Making  of  a  Scholar.  321 

rewards  of  such  scholars?  Not  generally  large 
in  money  values,  but  something  better.  First 
there  is  the  satisfaction  of  knowing,  second  of 
having  contributed  to  human  knowledge,  thirdly 
the  homage  of  old  pupils,  especially  those  who 
have  succeeded  in  the  world  and  who  believe  in 
one — the  most  human  and  the  deepest  of  joys; 
and  lastly,  popular  recognition,  though  this  often 
comes  after  the  scholar  is  gone. 

What  are  the  things  that  work  against  scholar- 
ship in  America?  Lack  of  adequate  reward? 
Small  salaries?  Partly;  but  still  more  the  lack 
of  true  scholarly  spirit  in  the  man,  and  of  a 
scholarly  atmosphere  to  work  in.  The  real  God- 
endowed  scholar  hankers  not  after  the  flesh-pots 
of  Egypt ;  he  wants  merely  enough  to  sustain  him 
and  the  means  to  work  out  his  plans.  The  hin- 
drances to  him  are  greater  from  within  than  from 
without.  He  may  be  led  astray  by  desire  for 
popular  applause,  a  craving  for  appreciation  of 
his  work  as  he  goes  along;  he  may  be  a  good 
speaker  and  have  executive  talent,  and  for  all 
such  college  presidencies  are  pitfalls  hard  to 
avoid.  There  is  danger  again  that  the  scholar 
who  might  be  a  thinker  and  discoverer,  who  is 
loyal  to  his  calling  and  not  tempted  overmuch 
by  desire  for  popular  applause  or  college  presi- 
dencies, may  expend  himself  completely  on  his 
21 


322  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

pupils.  He  may  have  eager,  clever  pupils — God's 
best  gift  to  him — and  may  find  so  much  satisfac- 
tion in  becoming  a  stimulating,  helpful  influence 
to  them  that  he  sacrifices  before  he  knows  it  all 
his  scholarly  ambitions  on  the  altar  of  their  ad- 
vancement, doing  them  an  incalculable  service, 
it  is  true,  but  still  a  dis-service  to  the  cause  of 
scholarship.  If  any  one  is  to  be  excused  for  not 
reaching  the  highest  goal  of  scholarship,  surely 
it  is  such  a  one. 

A  few  words  in  conclusion  about  the  position  of 
the  ripened  scholar.  His  is  a  happy  lot.  His  pu- 
pils look  up  to  him  with  reverence  as  well  as  af- 
fection. The  world  honors  him  for  his  plain  liv- 
ing and  high  thinking  and  calls  him  a  sage.  An 
unconscious  but  perpetual  protest  against  the  sor- 
did money-making  spirit,  he  draws  out  all  the 
highest  impulses  of  his  students  while  they  are 
with  him,  and  remains  always  as  the  embodiment 
of  their  souls'  aspirations,  an  idealized  memory 
which  prompts  to  noble  effort,  or,  like  an  angel 
with  flaming  sword,  stands  in  the  way  of  him 
who  would  go  wrong.  It  is  well  for  the  young 
men  that  they  sit  at  the  feet  of  such  men  to  learn, 
not  to  criticise.  Andrew  D.  White  describes  the 
impression  made  upon  him  at  twenty-four  by  the 
great  historian  von  Ranke  at  sixty : 


The  Making  of  a  Scholar.  323 

He  had  a  habit  of  becoming  so  absorbed  in  his  sub- 
ject as  to  slip  down  in  his  chair,  hold  his  finger  up 
toward  the  ceiling,  and  then  with  his  eye  fastened  upon 
the  top  of  it  go  mumbling  through  a  kind  of  rhapsody, 
which  most  of  my  German  fellow-students  confessed 
they  could  not  understand.  It  was  a  comical  sight :  half 
a  dozen  students  crowding  around  his  desk  listening  to 
the  professor,  as  priests  might  listen  to  the  sibyl  on  her 
tripod,  the  other  students  being  scattered  through  the 
room  in  various  stages  of  discouragement. 

Perhaps  the  intention  was  to  reveal  only  Mr. 
White's  disappointment;  and  yet  the  picture  of 
those  reverential  and  enthusiastic  young  Germans 
for  their  great  master  is  all  that  remains  in  my 
mind,  after  twenty  years,  of  Minister  White's  ac- 
count of  how  he  was  educated.  Another  lecture 
scene  comes  to  my  mind  in  connection  with  the 
last.  Professor  Gildersleeve  describes  it: 

Some  years  ago  I  attended  a  lecture  by  a  great  mas- 
ter. The  theme  was  the  vanishing  of  weak  vowels  in 
Latin.  Candor  compels  me  to  state  that  although  I 
pride  myself  on  being  interested  in  the  most  uninter- 
esting things  I  should  have  chosen  another  subject  for 
a  specimen  lecture.  Candor  compels  me  to  state  also 
that  I  very  much  question  whether  the  illustrious  teach- 
er would  accept  all  his  own  teachings  to-day,  such 
progress  do  grammarians  make  in  devouring  themselves 
as  well  as  one  another.  I  was  much  struck  with  the 
tone  in  which  he  announced  his  subject.  It  was  the 
tone  of  a  man  who  had  seen  the  elements  melt  with 


324          .  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

fervent  heat,  and  the  weak  vowels  vanish  at  the  sound 
of  the  last  trump.  The  tone,  indeed,  seemed  entirely  too 
pathetic  for  the  occasion ;  but  as  he  went  on  and  mar- 
shaled the  facts,  and  set  in  order  the  long  lines  that 
connected  the  disappearance  of  the  vowel  with  the 
downfall  of  a  great  nationality,  and  great  linguistic, 
great  moral,  great  historical  laws  marched  in  stately 
procession  before  the  vision  of  the  student,  the  airy 
vowels  that  had  flitted  into  the  Nowhere  seemed  to  be 
the  lost  soul  of  Roman  life,  and  the  Latin  language, 
Roman  literature,  and  Roman  history  were  clothed  with 
a  new  meaning. 

It  is  indeed  well  with  young  men  who  pass  out 
from  any  great  presence  saying  to  one  another, 
"Did  not  our  hearts  burn  within  us  while  he 
talked  with  us  ?"  Of  all  the  great  teachers  I  have 
known  who  had  the  power  thus  to  draw  and 
warm  young  men's  souls,  I  should  mention  espe- 
cially four :  Dr.  Hopkins,  of  Williams,  whom  I 
knew  at  eighty — "Mark  the  perfect  man,"  his 
students  called  him ;  Dr.  Garland,  the  clearest  of 
teachers,  whose  daily  life  was  better  than  a  reviv- 
al ;  Dr.  Bascom,  sometime  president  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Wisconsin,  the  impression  of  whose 
visit  to  Madison  some  years  ago  was  as  if  one  of 
the  prophets  of  old  had  passed  by;  the  fourth  the 
single  survivor  of  the  old  guard  of  Wofford's 
faculty,  the  chief  of  all  the  beneficent  influences 
that  ever  operated  here  to  produce  scholars,  still 


The  Making  of  a  Scholar.  325 

more  to  make  men.  This  semi-centennial  of  the 
college  is  his  jubilee,  and  we  are  back  here  above 
all  to  do  honor  to  him.,  because,  in  a  truer,  fuller 
sense  than  I  have  ever  known  in  the  case  of  any 
other  man,  he  is  the  college.  Dr.  Carlisle,  you 
wrote  me  last  year,  "The  gratitude  of  men  makes 
me  mourn."  I  think  I  know  what  you  meant; 
but  your  modesty  will  have  to  bear  with  us  at 
this  commencement.  This  is  our- day.  It  is  good, 
too,  for  us  to  feel  gratitude  and  express  it,  and  it 
can  do  you  no  harm.  When  I  pay  homage  to  you' 
as  the  best  man  I  have  ever  known  and  the  most 
potent  human  influence  in  my  life,  I  am  but  voic- 
ing the  sentiment  of  the  great  host  of  Wofford's 
sons  and  paying  the  college  the  highest  tribute. 

But  thou  wouldst  not  alone 
Be  saved,  my  father !  alone 
Conquer  and  come  to  the  goal, 
Leaving  the  rest  in  the  wild. 
We  were  weary,  and  we 
Fearful,  and  we  in  our  march 
Fain  to  drop  down  and  to  die. 
Still  thou  turnedst,  and  still 
Beckonedst  the  trembler,  and  still 
Gavest  the  weary  thy  hand. 

If,  in  the  paths  of  the  world, 
Stones  might  have  wounded  thy  feet, 
Toil  or  dejection  have  tried 
Thy  spirit,  of  that  we  saw 


326  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

Nothing — to  us  thou  wast  still 
Cheerful,  and  helpful,  and  firm! 
Therefore  to  thee  it  was  given 
Many  to  save  with  thyself; 
And,  at  the  end  of  thy  day, 
O  faithful  shepherd !  to  come, 
Bringing  thy  sheep  in  thy  hand. 

And  through  thee  I  believe 

In  the  noble  and  great  who  are  gone ; 

Pure  souls  honor'd  and  blest 

By  former  ages,  who  else — 

Such,  so  soulless,  so  poor, 

Is  the  race  of  men  whom  I  see — 

Seem'd  but  a  dream  of  the  heart, 

Seem'd  but  a  cry  of  desire. 

Yes!  I  believe. that  there  lived 

Others  like  thee  in  the  past, 

Not  like  the  men  of  the  crowd 

Who  all  round  me  to-day 

Bluster  or  cringe,  and  make  life 

Hideous,  and  arid,  and  vile ; 

But  souls  tempered  with  fire, 

Fervent,  heroic,  and  good, 

Helpers  and  friends  of  mankind. 


XIV. 

CHARACTER  AND  PERSONAL  IN- 
FLUENCE.1 

I  CARRIED  away  with  me  from  here  fourteen 
years  ago  a  feeling  about  Southern,  and  espe- 
cially Vanderbilt  University,  students  which  has 
doubtless  through  time  and  distance  become 
somewhat  idealized.  I  was  greatly  impressed 
during  my  first  year  here  (1882-83)  with  the 
spirit  of  the  students  at  examinations.  The  time 
limit  was  then  five  hours — it  had  already  been 
cut  down  from  six  to  five  hours — and  when 
spread  over  two  weeks  it  was  little  short  of  cruel- 
ty to  animals.  But  the  students  did  not  hold  muti- 
nous class  meetings  or  rebel.  They  simply  went 
in  with  a  sort  of  Balaklava  spirit — 

Theirs  not  to  reason  why, 
Theirs  but  to  do  or  die; 

and  they  took  the  consequences — often  a  fail- 
ure— if  not  cheerfully,  at  least  stoically.  I  great- 
ly admired  this  fighting  spirit  of  the  Vanderbilt 

1Commencement  Address  at  Vanderbilt  University, 
June  1 6,  1908. 

(327) 


328  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

students  from  the  start;  and  my  respect  for  the 
student  attitude  here  grew  during  the  following 
eleven  years.  Nothing  in  my  life  can  ever  so 
impress  and  touch  me  as  my  experience  here  dur- 
ing my  last  year.  I  had  suffered  in  the  spring 
of  1893  the  crudest  blow  that  can  befall  a  man; 
and  in  trying  to  right  myself  after  that  catastro- 
phe, I  had  felt,  "Now  I  must  stop  writing  and 
put  my  life  into  young  human  souls."  I  needed 
comfort  and  sympathy,  and  I  taught  that  last 
year  (1893-94)  as  I  had  never  taught  before;  I 
gave  myself  up  to  my  students,  and  they  re- 
sponded ;  they  lifted  me  out  of  the  slough  of 
brooding  by  cheerfully  meeting  every  demand, 
or  even  wish,  of  mine.  I  shall  never  forget  the 
impression  made  on  President  Adams,  when  he 
came  in  March,  1894.  to  entice  me  away,  on 
finding  that  all  the  members  of  my  highest 
elective  came  every  Monday  night  to  my  study  to 
read  Sophocles'  CEdipus  Re.r,  as  an  optional  and 
without  credit.  Perhaps  they  were  unusual  stu- 
dents even  in  Vanderbilt,  for  Miss  Annie  Pas- 
chall  and  Bates  were  in  the  class.  I  have  always 
maintained  that  the  estimate  of  a  professor  given 
by  his  best  students  was  worth  far  more  than 
that  of  the  president  or  of  all  one's  colleagues, 
for  the  students  know  what  their  teacher  knows 
and  can  do ;  one's  colleagues  have  only  a  general 


Character  and  Personal  Influence.       329 

opinion.  At  any  rate,  I  think  my  students  set- 
tled my  fate  in  1894,  and  President  Adams  made 
the  trade  he  came  to  see  about.  I  remember 
sending  for  a  graduate  of  the  University  of  Wis- 
consin, who  held  a  fellowship  here  at  the  time 
(now  a  professor  in  the  University  of  Iowa),  to 
ask  him  about  the  habits  of  studiousness  at  the 
University  of  Wisconsin.  He  said :  "You  will 
find  a  great  many  hard-working  students  at  Mad- 
ison; the  majority  do  study.  But  I  never  saw 
anything  like  this  place ;  everybody  studies  here ; 
it  is  bad  form  at  Vanderbilt  not  to  work  hard." 

And  in  my  fourteen  years  of  absence  how  my 
old  Vanderbilters  have  helped  me !  Letters  have 
come  to  me  from  college  and  university  presi- 
dents, from  editors  and  lawyers,  from  students 
in  Germany,  and  missionaries  in  far-away  China 
and  Japan,  that  have  stayed  up  my  weary  hands 
and  kept  me  from  losing  all  faith  in  myself.  And 
now  at  the  end  of  fourteen  years  in  a  far  country 
I  have  come  home  on  a  visit,  feeling  much  as  I 
have  seen  East-Tennesseans  coming  back  from 
the  prairies  of  Texas  and  catching  from  the  car 
•window  the  first  sight  of  the  mountains  of  Ten- 
nessee, the  home  of  their  childhood. 

I  have  idealized  everything  here,  no  doubt ; 
but  I  do  not  want  to  be  disillusioned,  at  least 
not  yet.  I  have  not  asked  Dr.  Kirkland  or  Dr. 


330  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

Dudley  how  far  I  am  still  right  about  Vanderbilt 
men  and  women ;  I  am  going  to  keep  my  illusion, 
if  it  be  such,  at  least  till  I  have  got  through  this 
speech.  With  such  sentiments  toward  Vander- 
bilters,  I  have  wanted  to  bring  you  a  message. 
If  I  have  not  idealized  out  of  all  reason  Southern 
youth  as  represented  here,  then  it  is  natural  that 
the  question  has  kept  recurring  ever  since  I  was 
invited  to  perform  this  honorable  duty,  What  sort 
of  men  are  fit  to  work  with  and  mold  and  influ- 
ence Southern  youth? 

My  experience  at  Yanderbilt,  after  studying 
at  Harvard  and  teaching  at  Williams,  convinced 
me  that  Southern  youth  are  more  susceptible  to 
personal  influence,  as  Southern  men  are,  I  think, 
more  ready  to  accept  personal  leadership,  than 
is  the  case  anywhere  else.  They  are  willing  to 
work  themselves  half  to  death  for  a  teacher,  if 
they  like  him.  and  their  loyalty  to  the  man  is  apt 
to  be  transmuted  into  love  of  his  subject.  This 
is  quite  as  it  should  be — the-  best  and  safest  thing. 
There  is,  of  course,  a  difference  in  the  value 
of  studies :  but  any  of  the  leading  ones  will  serve 
the  purposes  of  discipline  and  culture.  "It  makes 
very  little  difference  what  you  study,"  said  Em- 
erson ;  "but  it  is  in  the  highest  degree  important 
with  whom  you  study."  The  man  is  the  thing 
of  supreme  importance.  Most  young  people  are 


Character  and  Personal  Influence.       331 

naturally  hero-worshipers,  and  this  soul-longing 
is  apt,  when  it  reaches  outside  of  the  family  cir- 
cle, to  fix  first  upon  some  older  comrade,  then 
upon  some  teacher.  Such  enthusiasms  are  natu- 
ral and  wholesome,  and  I  think  a  youth  has 
missed  the  best  that  period  of  life  has  to  offer 
who  has  not  felt  his  soul  go  out  thus  to  some 
teacher.  Such  a  soul-yearning  is  at  once  a  stim- 
ulus and  a  safeguard ;  it  bids  him  work  to  please 
his  mentor;  it  safeguards  him  in  temptation  with 

the  thought,  "What  will  think  of  me  if 

I  do  that?"  "Cherish  the  natural  sentiment 
of  personal  devotion  to  the  teacher  who  calls 
out  your  better  powers,"  says  President  El- 
iot. "It  is  a  great  delight  to  serve  an  intellec- 
tual master.  ...  If  ever  in  after  years  you 
come  to  smile  at  the  youthful  reverence  you 
paid,  believe  me,  it  will  be  with  tears  in  your 
eyes." 

There  is  another  quality  close  akin  to  loyalty 
which  is,  I  think,  inherent  in  the  Southern  tem- 
perament— namely,  a  spirit  of  reverence.  "There 
is  one  thing,"  says  Carlyle,  "which  no  child 
brings  into  this  world  with  him,  and  without 
which  all  other  things  are  of  no  use : 
Reverence,  the  soul  of  all  religion  that  has  ever 
been  among  men,  or  ever  will  be."  The  man- 
ners of  the  people  are  a  sort  of  outward  evidence 


332  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

of  this  spirit.  Southerners  are,  I  believe,  uni- 
versally conceded  to  be  the  politest  people  in  the 
country ;  and  I  like  the  habit  that  obtains  univer- 
sally in  South  Carolina,  and  in  many  Southern 
colleges,  of  students  lifting  their  hats  to  their 
superiors  or  elders.  It  is  a  beautiful  custom;  it 
is  at  least  good  for  the  youth  who  thus  shows  re- 
spect; and  it  doesn't  hurt  anybody  else.  I  con- 
fess that  I  like,  too.  the  Southern  way  of  saying 
"Yes,  sir,"  and  "No,  sir."  There  is  such  a  thing 
as  being  too  democratic.  I  went  once  into  the 
city  of  Charleston  on  a  train  loaded  with  North- 
ern teachers,  and  I  shall  never  forget  the  im- 
pression made  upon  those  teachers  by  the  polite- 
ness of  the  young  men  of  Charleston.  Among 
a  people  in  whose  blood  there  is  so  large  a  strain 
of  the  Cavalier  or  the  Huguenot,  it  is  not  hard 
to  cultivate  this  spirit. 

Along  with  and  close  akin  to  loyalty  and  rev- 
erence, I  think  there  is  in  the  nature  of  the 
Southerner  another  quality  essential  in  training 
for  life's  duties — namely,  the  sentiment  of  honor. 
It  might  be  too  much  to  claim  that  the  Southern- 
er pays  his  debts  better  than  other  people ;  but  he 
has  always  prided  himself  on  keeping  his  word, 
and  you  dare  not  call  him  a  liar;  if  you  impugn 
what  he  esteems  his  honor,  he  has  always  been 
prone  to  shoot,  either  in  a  duel  or  otherwise. 


Character  and  Personal  Influence.       333 

One  thing  is  certain:  you  can  trust  to  students' 
honor  in  Southern  colleges  not  to  cheat  on  exami- 
nation. The  thing  has  been  tested  and  proved 
too  many  times  and  in  too  many  colleges  to  be 
doubted.  There  have  been  exceptions  at  Van- 
derbilt,  at  the  University  of  Virginia,  and  per- 
haps at  all  our  colleges;  but  these  have  been 
sporadic,  and  only  proved  the  rule.  I  came  to 
Vanderbilt  in  1882  rather  skeptical  as  to  the 
"honor  system" ;  but  that  year  or  the  next  I 
saw  the  members  of  a  fraternity  appear  before 
the  faculty  with  the  charge  and  the  proof  of 
dishonesty  in  examination  against  one  of  their 
own  number,  and  asking  that  he  be  expelled. 
Then  I  knew  the  "honor  system"  would  work; 
and  the  longer  I  stayed  here  and  the  more  I  ob- 
served, the  more  I  was  sure  of  it.  The  most  im- 
pressive scene  I  ever  witnessed  here  was  when 
the  venerable  Chancellor  Garland  one  Wednes- 
day morning  announced  from  this  platform  that 
a  certain  graduate,  whose  name  he  withheld,  had 
sent  back  his  diploma.  It  had  been  returned  with 
the  confession  that  in  a  single  examination  the 
student  had  used  forbidden  help ;  and  though  he 
had  never  been  suspected,  and  years  had  passed, 
he  had  never  had  any  peace  of  mind.  He  there- 
fore returned  his  diploma,  and  asked  that  his 
name  be  stricken  from  the  roll  of  alumni  and 


334  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

announcement  made  of  his  confession,  prefer- 
ring public  disgrace  rather  than  to  bear  longer 
the  intolerable  memory  of  a  single  secret  sinful 
act.  The  Chancellor  said  that  he  had,  after  much 
consideration,  decided  that  the  young  man's  re- 
pentance and  suffering  had  been  a  sufficient 
atonement  for  his  error,  and  insisted  on  his  re- 
taining his  diploma.  But  the  young  man  would 
not  consent.  "Here  is  the  diploma,"  said  Dr. 
Garland,  holding  out  the  mutilated  parchment; 
"but  I  have  cut  out  the  name,  and  the  secret  shall 
die  with  me."  This  hall  was  as  still  as  death. 
The  Chancellor  had  conveyed  his  lesson  in  morali- 
ty. No  one  who  heard  that  short  impressive 
statement  and  saw  the  effect  upon  the  students 
could  believe  such  a  thing  likely  to  occur  again 
as  long  as  that  tradition  remained  at  the  univer- 
sity. Since  I  have  seen  a  whole  student  body,  gen- 
erations of  them,  so  filled  with  this  sentiment  of 
keeping  a  pledge — the  very  atmosphere  of  the 
institution  charged  with  it — I  have  felt  that  men 
who  had  breathed  such  an  atmosphere  ought  to 
be  able  to  withstand  the  bribes  offered  in  city 
council  or  legislature  or  Congress,  the  tempta- 
tions in  banks  or  railway  offices.  I  believe  the 
statistics  of  Vanclerbilt  alumni  in  such  matters 
would,  on  the  whole,  prove  that  the  "honor  sys- 
tem" works  with  them  in  life.  I  do  not  think 


Character  and  Personal  Influence.       335 

it  is  altogether  accident  that  the  man  who  has 
made  the  greatest  reputation  in  the  whole  coun- 
try as  prosecutor  of  boodlers  is  an  old  Vander- 
bilter. 

If  the  characteristics  of  the  typical  Southern 
youth  are  such  as  I  have  defined,  then  it  is  a 
mere  commonplace  to  say  that  teaching  is  a  glo- 
rious business.  Of  course  it  is,  here  or  any- 
where. "To  be  young  is  very  heaven" ;  and  the 
youth  are  the  hope  of  any  country.  Jowett,  the 
great  master  of  Balliol  College,  used  to  speak 
of  the  "unspeakable  importance  of  the  four  crit- 
ical years  between  about  eighteen  and  twenty- 
two"  ;  and  a  few  months  before  his  death  he 
wrote:  "I  think  that  the  best  and  happiest  part 
of  my  life  has  been  spent  with  them  [under- 
graduates] and  with  Plato."  When  John  Bright 
went  to  Oxford  to  receive  his  D.C.L.  degree, 
they  took  him  to  a  point  whence  he  could  look 
down  on  "that  sweet  city  with  her  dreaming 
spires."  Rousing  himself  at  length  from  the 
spell  which  the  scene  seemed  to  cast  over  him,  he 
remarked :  "How  glorious  it  would  be  to  be 
eighteen  years  old  again  and  to  be  coming  here !" 
In  the  winter  preceding  the  Republican  Conven- 
tion of  1888,  when  all  men  expected  John  Sher- 
man to  be  the  next  presidential  nominee  of  his 
party,  I  heard  him  say  from  this  platform  in  a 


336  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

tone  of  absolute  sincerity :  "Young  men,  I  would 
give  all  that  I  have  accomplished  in  the  world, 
all  that  I  hope  to  accomplish,  my  fondest  dreams 
and  ambitions,  for  the  privilege  of  sitting  on 
these  benches  and  doing  it  all  over  again."  Pres- 
ident Eliot  said  in  his  inaugural  address,  forty 
years  ago  save  one :  "Whoever  wishes  to  do  some 
perpetual  good  in  the  world,  whoever  hopes  to 
win  that  finest  luxury,  must  exert  his  influence 
upon  the  young,  the  healthy,  the  promising." 
And  only  last  January  I  heard  him  say  in  an 
address  to  a  vast  audience  of  students  at  Madi- 
son :  "I  am  an  optimist,  because  I  have  been  all 
my  life  in  the  stream  of  young  men  flowing  into 
and  out  of  college  doors."  To  be  congratulated 
above  all  others  is  the  youth  who  is  just  entering 
college.  Such  a  circle  he  will  never  again  find 
among  men.  There  are  gathered  the  hope  of  the 
country,  the  youths  of  ambition,  of  high  aspira- 
tions, of  still  unlowered,  untarnished  ideals.  Soc- 
rates, the  greatest  of  all  Athenians,  knew  all 
that.  For  him  to  live,  even  in  fathomless  poverty, 
at  Athens,  where  he  could  talk  with  young  men 
like  Plato  and  Phasdo  and  Simmias  and  Cebes, 
was  better  than  to  be  a  courtier,  in  ease  and 
luxury,  in  the  palace  of  the  King  of  Macedon ; 
so  \vhen  Archelaus  invited  him  to  come,  he  re- 
plied: "At  Athens  one  can  buy  a  gallon  of  flour 


Character  and  Personal  Influence.       337 

for  a  drachma,  and  one  can  drink  water  for  noth- 
ing ;  I  will  stay  in  Athens."  He  was  wise  to  stay 
there.  It  was  men  he  was  interested  in,  and 
human  conduct  he  was  chiefly  concerned  about; 
and  only  at  Athens  could  be  found  young  men 
like  Plato  and  Phsedo,  Alcibiades  and  Xeno- 
phon. 

What  are  the  chief  requisites,  we  may  now 
ask,  in  those  to  whom  are  to  be  intrusted  the 
all-important  work  of  instructing  young  men  and 
women  and  molding  their  characters?  First, 
and  absolutely  indispensable,  of  course,  are  abili- 
ty and  scholarship ;  and  in  the  higher  forms  there 
must  be  enthusiasm  for  research,  insatiable  love 
of  scientific  truth  and  zeal  to  impart  it.  But 
further  and  quite  as  important  are  other  quali- 
ties, if  education  means,  as  Jowett  understood  it, 
"the  training  of  character  as  well  as  mere  in- 
struction." The  professor  must  be  a  gentleman 
as  well  as  a  scholar.  There  must  be  a  clean  life, 
sound  morals,  love  of  and  sympathy  with  youth, 
winning  personality,  the  zeal  of  a  pastor,  unself- 
ishness— all  that  we  sum  up  under  the  term 
"character." 

I  am  more  and  more  inclined,  as  I  grow  older, 
to  lay  stress  upon  unselfishness  as  the  chief  ele- 
ment in  character,  and  to  feel  that  solicitude  for 
the  religious  well-being  of  the  pupil  is  a  nec- 

22 


338  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

essary  constituent  of  unselfishness.  Dr.  Arnold 
always  felt  that  he  must  be  pastor  as  well  as  in- 
structor of  his  pupils.  If  the  teacher  inspires 
admiration  by  his  scholarship,  if  he  makes  his 
subject  interesting  and  attractive,  if  he  wins  con- 
fidence by  his  character  and  personal  devotion 
by  his  lovableness,  he  is  a  treasure  beyond  price. 
"That  is  all  commonplace,"  some  one  may  ob- 
ject; "everybody  admits  that.  But  how  are  you 
going  to  get  such  teachers?"  "Buy  them  at  a 
great  price,"  some  say;  "pay  big  salaries;  the 
best  talent  is  going,  not  into  scholarship  and 
teaching,  but  into  business,  because  the  money 
rewards  are  greater  there.  Universities  must  go 
into  the  markets  and  bid  against  the  railroads  and 
manufacturing  corporations ;  the  university  pro- 
fessor must  get  his  ten  thousand  or  twenty  thou- 
sand a  year,  as  the  great  banker  or  stockbroker." 
I  don't  think  that  will  solve  the  problem.  You 
can  buy  talent  in  the  market :  but  those  other  and 
more  necessary  additional  things — scientific  zeal, 
wholesome  and  winsome  personality,  character 
— never  are  for  sale  in  the  market,  and  cannot  be 
bought  with  money.  Besides,  the  universities 
cannot  compete  with  steel  trusts,  mammoth  rail- 
way syndicates,  great  insurance  companies ;  these 
can  always  outbid  them.  But  the  universities 
can  console  themselves ;  not  so  much  is  lost  after 


Character  and  Personal  Influence.       339 

all.  The  men  that  are  bought  off  into  business 
only  follow  their  bent;  they  are  not  called  to 
teach  or  pursue  research  in  science  or  philoso- 
phy or  literature.  They  might  have  done  part  of 
the  work  of  a  President  Eliot — run  the  business 
side  of  the  university — but  that  is  all.  Who  ever 
thought  of  Faraday  or  Darwin  or  Huxley,  Agas- 
siz  or  Whitney  or  Gildersleeve,  being  invited  to 
become  the  head  of  a  bank  or  railway?  It  is 
absurd  to  think  of,  and  at  any  time  in  their  ca- 
reers they  would  have  made  answer  to  such 
temptations  in  Agassiz's  words :  "I  have  no  time 
to  make  money."  And  most  of  them  would  not 
succeed  if  they  tried.  The  late  President  Harper 
might,  I  believe,  have  become  a  great  captain  of 
industry  as  easily  as  he  was  a  great  university 
president ;  but  he  could  never  have  been  enticed 
away  into  business.  His  heart  was  really  in  his 
study  and  teaching,  not  in  his  presidency;  he 
used  to  say  if  he  had  to  give  up  the  presidency 
of  the  university  or  the  professorship  of  Semitic 
languages,  it  would  be  the  former  he  would  re- 
sign, not  the  latter. 

I  think  the  really  great  teachers  have  a  call 
to  teach,  as  the  preachers  feel  a  call  to  preach, 
Their  services  will  never  be  adequately  rewarded 
in  money ;  and  that  is  not  the  prime  object  with 
them.  Fair  salaries  they  should  have,  because 


34°  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

they  have  a  right  to  live  comfortably,  to  go  into 
good  society,  to  buy  books,  to  have  the  means 
to  pursue  research,  to  travel  some,  and  to  bring 
up  a  family.  But  beyond  that  I  doubt  if  it  is 
well  to  go.  There  is  a  danger  of  commercializ- 
ing education  in  putting  salaries  on  a  strictly 
money  basis,  as  well  as  in  teaching  bookkeeping 
in  college  instead  of  Latin  and  Greek.  We 
teachers  must  get  our  reward  in  something 
better  than  money — in  the  dignity  and  prestige 
belonging  to  the  position ;  in  research ;  in  the 
pursuit  of  high  ideals ;  in  the  discovery  of  God- 
given  talent,  and  stimulating,  developing,  molding 
this ;  in  the  homage  that  comes  after  a  while 
from  one's  disciples.  "Did  not  our  hearts  burn 
within  us  as  he  talked  to  us?"  said  the  two  disci- 
ples when  the  now  recognized  Jesus  suddenly 
vanished  from  their  sight  after  that  wonderful 
talk  by  the  way  and  at  Emmaus.  We  have  all 
had  something  like  that  experience  at  some  epoch 
in  our  lives.  "There  come  moments  when  some 
intimate  experience  is  confided  to  us,  and  then 
in  the  pause  of  talk  we  become  aware  that  we 
are  in  the  presence  of  a  human  soul  behind  the 
familiar  face  of  our  friend,  and  that  we  are  on 
holy  ground."  It  is  at  such  moments  that  the 
best  teaching  is  done.  Neither  master  nor  dis- 
ciple is  aware  that  it  is  a  lesson ;  it  is  not  instruc- 


Character  and  Personal  Influence.       34  r 

tion,  but  communion.  Both  sides  are  off  guard, 
all  barriers  are  down,  and  nothing  hinders  the 
influence  of  spirit  upon  spirit. 

It  is  the  personality,  then,  of  the  teacher  that 
is  all-important.  "When  a  man  recalls  his  edu- 
cational experience,"  says  Mr.  Mabie,  "he  finds 
that  many  of  his  richest  opportunities  were  not 
identified  with  subjects  or  systems  or  apparatus, 
but  with  teachers."  As  we  look  back  after  twen- 
ty years,  we  find  that  most  of  the  men  who  lec- 
tured to  us  have  faded  away  with  the  lessons  we 
learned  from  them;  but  here  and  there  a  per- 
sonality is  still  distinct,  as  in  the  mountains  at 
sunrise  a  high  peak  stands  out  here  and  there, 
like  an  ^Egean  island,  in  the  sea  of  fog  that  has 
settled  down  upon  all  the  rest.  Those  were  the 
teachers  who  had  the  happy  faculty  to  "impart 
the  breath  of  life  by  giving-  us  inspiration  and 
impulse."  They  were  the  ones  that  revealed 
to  us  the  rich  personalities  of  the  past,  mediated 
between  us  and  the  great  books  in  which  is  stored 
up  the  wisdom  of  the  ages.  Real  teaching  must 
be,  as  Edward  Thring  used  to  say,  transmission 
"from  the  living,  through  the  living,  into  the  liv- 
ing." These  middle  men  through  whom  the  liv- 
ing stream  is  to  come  to  young  men  and  women 
in  the  critical  period  of  their  college  days  ought 
to  be  rich  and  strong  and  winning  personalities. 


342  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

Most  men  who  do  much  in  the  world  point  back 
to  some  teacher  who  opened  their  eyes  to  a  new 
world  about  them,  and  the  chief  element  in  the 
transformation  is  always  sympathy.  By  means 
of  that  the  soul  of  the  disciple  opens  to  the  influ- 
ence of  the  master  as  the  flower  to  the  radiance 
of  the  sun.  So  Bishop  McTyeire  pointed  to 
Landon  C.  Garland,  Bishop  Galloway  to  L.  Q.  C. 
Lamar,  Dr.  Baskervill  and  Dr.  Tillett  to  Thomas 
R.  Price,  Dr.  Alexander  to  Dr.  Broadus,  Presi- 
dent Adams  to  Andrew  D.  White,  President  Gar- 
field  to  Mark  Hopkins. 

Shall  I  name  one  or  two  of  these  great  teach- 
ers whom  I  have  known?  I  came  in  my  college 
clays  under  the  influence  of  one  of  these  strong 
personalities.  He  has  lived  his  whole  life  of 
eighty-three  years  in  the  state  where  he  was  born, 
and  that  whole  state  has  been  more  influenced 
for  good  by  him  in  that  long  period  than  by  any 
other  man.  He  has  taught  fifty-four  years  in 
the  same  small  college,  and  has  given  impulse 
and  inspiration  to  many  generations  of  college 
boys — one  of  the  ablest  and  the  very  best  man 
I  have  ever  known,  the  most  potent  human  influ- 
ence in  my  life. 

To  thee  it  was  given 
Many  to  save  with  thyself; 
And  at  the  end  of  thy  day, 


Character  and  Personal  Influence,       343 

O  faithful  shepherd,  to  come, 
Bringing  thy  sheep  in  thy  hand. 

When  I  speak  of  Dr.  Carlisle,  I  am  sure  to  think 
also  of  dear,  good,  simple,  sincere  Dr.  Garland. 
There  will  never  be  another  college  president 
like  him  in  America.  ''The  beauty  of  declining 
years,  the  nobility  of  race  and  of  high-bred  ap- 
pearance, the  sunlit  eyes,  the  fine  mouth  and 
frank,  kindly  countenance — a  type,  in  short,  of 
one  who  has  lived  an  honest,  well-filled  life, 
whose  conscience  is  easy  and  whose  soul  is  pure." 
The  words  were  written  about  an  ideal  French 
old  gentleman,  but  surely  they  describe  Chancel- 
lor Garland.  I  see  him  now  in  his  favorite  seat 
toward  evening — the  bench  under  the  magnolia 
at  his  front  door — a  frail,  thin  old  man,  much 
bent,  his  white  hair  covered  with  a  velvet  cap,  his 
dress  simple,  his  features  strongly  marked,  and 
strikingly  like  Henry  Clay's.  Over  sixty  years 
professor,  and  president  at  different  times  of 
three  colleges  or  universities,  he  had  had  many 
honors;  but  they  had  sought  him,  not  he  them. 
He  had  worn  his  honors  as  he  would  a  garment ; 
they  were  not  a  part  of  him,  and  he  could  lay 
them  aside  as  he  put  off  a  garment.  But  his 
honor,  his  honesty,  his  sincerity,  his  fidelity,  his 
truthfulness,  his  trust  in  God,  his  serenity  of  dis- 
position, his  love  of  birds  and  trees  and  flowers 


344  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

and  children,  were  part  of  his  nature,  and  he 
could  not  lay  them  off.  What  made  bad  students 
respect  him,  good  students  revere  him,  alumni 
venerate  him,  the  faculty  and  their  wives  and 
children  look  up  to  him  as  to  one  of  the  old 
Hebrew  patriarchs?  It  was  his  character — the 
character  of  a  simple,  austere,  kindly,  gentle, 
sweet,  truthful,  sincere,  righteous,  noble  man. 
He  was  greater  than  anything  he  did ;  like  Na- 
thanael  of  old,  a  man  in  whom  was  no  guile,  and 
free  from  all  selfishness.  While  he  lived  here  his 
daily  walk  was  better  for  the  students  than  a 
religious  revival,  and  his  memory  is  one  of  the 
chief  assets  of  an  institution  in  whose  service 
have  died  men  like  Summers,  McTyeire,  Dodd, 
Reese,  Briggs,  Morgan,  Malone,  Menees,  Mad- 
din,  Merrill,  Safford,  Baskervill,  and  Tigert. 

"The  noble  desire  to  honor  those  whom  you 
think  worthy  of  honor,"  Thomas  Carlyle  com- 
mended to  the  students  of  Edinburgh  University. 
Reverence  is  a  priceless  quality  in  young  people, 
and  it  seems  such  a  natural  and  easy  thing  when 
a  man  like  Dr.  Carlisle  or  Dr.  Garland  is  on  a 
college  campus ;  and  problems  of  discipline  and 
diligence  are  so  much  easier  in  the  atmosphere  of 
such  teachers.  Be  glad,  young  men  and  women 
of  Vanderbilt,  that  you  still  have  with  you  a  fig- 
ure worthy  of  such  reverence,  a  professor  modest 


Character  and  Personal  Influence.       345 

as  he  is  learned,  the  best-read  man  that  ever  was 
here — the  -senior  member  of  the  present  faculty. 
His  presence  on  these  grounds  is  a  benediction. 

William  James,  the  great  Harvard  psycholo- 
gist, made  recently  a  very  wise  speech  to  the 
students  of  Radcliffe  College. 

The  higher  education  [he  said]  should  enable  us  to 
know  a  good  man  when  we  see  him.  .  .  .  The  feel- 
ing for  a  good  human  job  anywhere,  the  admiration  for 
the  really  admirable,  the  disesteem  of  what  is  cheap 
and  trashy  and  impermanent — this  is  what  we  call  the 
critical  sense,  the  sense  for  ideal  values;  it  is  the  better 
part  of  what  men  know  as  wisdom.  .  .  .  The  sense 
for  human  superiority  ought  then  to  be  our  line.  .  .  . 
Our  colleges  ought  to  have  lit  up  in  us  a  lasting  relish 
for  the  better  kind  of  man,  a  loss  of  appetite  for 
mediocrities  and  a  disgust  for  cheap-jacks.  We  ought 
to  smell,  as  it  were,  the  difference  in  quality  in  men 
and  their  proposals  when  we  enter  the  world  of  affairs 
about  us. 

But  in  talking  of  the  chief  business  of  the 
higher  education,  to  "enable  us  to  know  a  good 
man  when  we  see  him,"  Professor  James  had  in 
mind  a  safeguard  against  a  possible  danger  to 
democracy.  He  is  talking  of  a  European's  view 
when  he  says:  "Vulgarity  enthroned  and  insti- 
tutionalized, elbowing  everything  from  the  high- 
way— this  they  tell  us  is  our  irremediable  desti- 
ny." But  I  think  it  is  easy  to  see  that  he  fears 


346  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

the  European  view  of  us  may  prove  to  be  right. 
"The  privileged  aristocracies  of  the  foretimes, 
with  all  their  iniquities,"  he  says,  "did  at  least 
preserve  some  taste  for  higher  human  quality 
and  honor  certain  forms  of  refinement  by  their 
enduring  traditions."  And  one  readily  recalls 
that  this  was  just  the  view  of  Dr.  Arnold  of 
Rugby. 

I  share  the  feeling  of  danger  threatening  de- 
mocracy to  which  Professor  James  refers,  and 
I  believe  in  his  remedy.  Young  people  in  college 
and  university  must  be  taught  to  know  a  good 
man  when  they  see  him.  And  it  seems  to  me  we 
Southern  people  have  had  in  our  own  time  as 
remarkable  an  object  lesson  of  this  sort  as  the 
world  ever  saw — a  good  and  great  man,  idolized 
by  a  whole  people,  tried  by  the  severest  tests  un- 
der the  blaze  of  the  search-lights  of  the  whole  civ- 
ilized world.  Some  of  us  know,  and  the  rest  have 
heard  and  read,  of  what  happened  in  this  country 
from  1860  to  1870.  There  was  offered  then,  un- 
consciously, what  might  be  called  a  university 
course  in  ethics  to  form  or  test  the  character  of  a 
whole  people.  General  Robert  E.  Lee  was  the 
instructor,  and  his  immediate  scholars  were,  from 
1861  to  1865.  the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia, 
from  1865  to  1870  the  students  and  faculty  of 
Washington  College ;  but  back  of  these,  and  look- 


Character  and  Personal  Influence.       347 

ing  on  as  a  vast  audience  at  a  great  trial  scene, 
stood  the  whole  Southern  people;  back  of  these, 
a  still  wider  outer  circle,  the  whole  American 
nation;  and  back  of  these  we  see  now  already 
coming  into  view  the  circle  of  the  whole  civilized 
world.  To  their  honor  be  it  said  they  stood  the 
test ;  the  army  and  the  whole  people  of  the  South 
responded  as  the  needle  to  the  magnet.  They 
had  a  supremely  great  and  good  man  among 
them,  peerless,  I  think,  in  the  whole  history  of 
the  American  people, — I  say  this  with  a  full  ap- 
preciation of  Washington  and  Lincoln, — and 
they  knew  the  good  man  when  they  saw  him. 
The  best  proof  was  the  unparalleled  confidence 
and  devotion  of  the  whole  Southern  army,  the 
trust  and  homage  of  his  whole  people.  This 
confidence  and  trust,  born  of  an  unprecedented 
series  of  victories  in  1862,  grew  into  devotion 
and  loyalty  such  as,  it  seems  to  me,  no  man,  even 
a  military  hero,  has  ever  before  aroused  and  so 
completely  retained,  an  allegiance  as  unwavering 
and  unquestioned  in  defeat  as  in  victory.  Get- 
tysburg was  a  crucial  test ;  Appomattox  was  the 
supreme  proof.  The  army,  the  people,  accepted 
the  final  result  without  criticism  or  blame  of  their 
great  leader.  They  felt,  they  knew,  that  "Marse 
Robert"  had  done  all  that  human  agency  could 
accomplish,  that  defeat  was  unavoidable  because 


348  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

he  could  not  for  fend  it.  Because  they  were  able 
to  recognize  the  worth  of  such  a  man  and  submit 
unquestioningly  to  his  guidance,  they  were  able 
as  a  people  to  endure  the  terrible  strain  of  recon- 
struction days  with  a  heroism  almost  equal  to 
that  of  war  times.  When  a  whole  people  looks 
up  with  pride  and  complete  devotion  to  a  su- 
premely great  and  good  man,  the  whole  mass  is 
uplifted  and  purified.  Ah,  my  friends,  I  do  not 
see  how  the  people  that  produced  and  appreciated 
General  Lee  can  ever  become  degenerate  while 
that  memory  lasts! 

And  now,  finally,  what  is  the  lesson  of  the 
moment  for  us  as  a  people  to  learn  from  our 
hero?  It  seems  to  me  to  be  this:  As  I  read  the 
daily  papers,  I  cannot  help  feeling  that  grave 
dangers  are  ahead  of  our  democracy.  Can  we 
stand  our  prosperity?  Will  not  the  worship  of 
the  almighty  dollar  carry  us  as  a  people  to  per- 
dition? I  am  afraid  that  what  the  Europeans 
say  of  us  as  a  nation  is  true.  As  a  people,  we 
love  the  dollar  better  than  anything  else  in  the 
universe.  If  that  be  true,  with  the  old  checks  of 
religion  so  largely  gone  and  ethical  standards  so 
changed,  what  will  save  us  ?  The  men  who  have 
sold  their  souls  for  wealth  are  beyond  redemp- 
tion; we  must  appeal  to  the  young.  And  what 
is  so  likely  to  be  potent  with  them  as  the  proof 


Character  and  Personal  Influence.       349 

that  their  ideal  hero  was  above  money  and  be- 
yond price,  his  whole  life  an  unconscious  protest 
against  the  worship  of  wealth?  Here  is  the 
proof.  He  was  our  finest  gentleman,  sprung 
from  a  line  of  noble  ancestors  reaching  back 
through  Robert  Bruce  of  Scotland,  to  the  Nor- 
man Conquest,  the  son  of  "Light-horse  Harry" 
Lee  and  husband  of  the  great-granddaughter  of 
Martha  Washington,  owner  of  the  baronial  man- 
or of  Arlington  and  possessor  otherwise  of  a 
princely  fortune.  He  had  lost  all  in  the  cata- 
clysm of  civil  war ;  and  when  he  was  thus  impov- 
erished, this  is  what  happened.  In  the  autumn 
of  1863  the  city  council  of  Richmond  voted  him 
a  house  for  his  family,  but  he  declined  it,  sug- 
gesting "that  whatever  means  the  city  council 
may  have  to  spare  for  this  purpose  may  be  de- 
voted to  the  relief  of  the  families  of  our  soldiers 
in  the  field."  After  the  war  an  English  nobleman 
offered  him  a  country  estate  with  an  annuity  of 
£3,000;  but  he  declined,  saying:  "I  must  abide 
the  fortunes  and  share  the  fate  of  my  people." 
In  1865  he  accepted  the  presidency  of  Washing- 
ton College  at  a  salary  of  $1,500  a  year;  but 
when  General  Ewell,  in  1868,  gave  $500  to  the 
college  on  condition  that  it  be  added  to  General 
Lee's  salary,  the  latter  declined  it,  writing  Gen- 
eral Ewell:  "I  already  receive  from  the  college 


350  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

a  larger  amount  than  my  poor  services  are 
worth."  He  was  invited  to  become  the  head  of 
a  firm  in  New  York  to  represent  Southern  com- 
merce, with  a  salary  of  $50,000 ;  but  this,  too,  he 
declined,  saying:  "I  am  grateful,  but  I  have  a 
self-imposed  task  which  I  must  accomplish;  I 
have  led  the  young  men  of  the  South  in  battle ; 
I  have  seen  many  of  them  die  on  the  field;  I 
shall  devote  my  remaining  energies  to  training 
young  men  to  do  their  duty  in  life."  The  presi- 
dency of  the  Southern  Insurance  Company,  in 
which  Hampton,  Gordon.  B.  H.  Hill,  and  other 
distinguished  ex-Confederates  were  directors, 
was  offered  him  at  a  salary  of  $10,000;  but  this 
also  he  declined,  saying:  "I  feel  that  I  ought  not 
to  abandon  the  position  I  hold  at  Washington 
College  at  this  time  or  as  long  as  I  can  be  of 
service  to  it."  The  distinguished  ex-Confederate 
officer  sent  to  make  him  the  offer  said:  "We  do 
not  wish  you  to  give  up  your  present  position, 
General,  or  to  discharge  any  duties  in  connection 
with  our  company.  The  truth  is,  we  only  want 
your  name  connected  with  the  company.  That 
would  amply  compensate  us  for  the  salary  we 
offer  you."  General  Lee's  face  flushed,  and  he 
replied:  'T  am  sorry,  sir,  that  you  are  so  little 
acquainted  with  my  character  as  to  suppose  that 
my  name  is  for  sale  at  any  price."  "I  found," 


Character  and  Personal  Influence.       351 

says  Dr.  J.  William  Jones,  "his  letter-book  filled 
with  replies  to  offers  of  this  character."  In  May, 
1870,  when  General  Lee  was  away  seeking  health, 
the  board  of  trustees  of  the  college  deeded  the 
president's  house,  which  had  been  built  under 
General  Lee's  supervision,  to  Mrs.  Lee,  with  an 
annuity  of  $3.500.  But  he  declined,  saying:  "I 
am  unwilling  that  my  family  should  become  a  tax 
to  the  college,  but  desire  all  its  funds  should  be 
devoted  to  the  purposes  of  education.  I  know 
that  my  wishes  on  this  subject  are  equally  shared 
by  my  wife."  After  the  General's  death  the  trus- 
tees sent  Mrs.  Lee  a  check  for  the  first  quarter 
of  the  annuity ;  but  she  promptly  returned  it,  with 
a  beautiful  letter  of  thanks,  saying  that  she  could 
not  accept  the  annuity,  and  was  ready  to  give  up 
the  house  to  the  new  president  whom  they  should 
elect.  The  new  president  elected  was  her  own 
son,  and  she  died  in  the  president's  house. 

My  chief  motive  in  introducing  here  the  charac- 
ter of  Robert  E.  Lee  is  a  recent  personal  experi- 
ence. I  read  last  winter  nine  volumes — several 
thousand  pages — for  light  on  his  character.  Per- 
haps I  was  homesick  for  my  own  people,  and  so 
drawn  to  their  ideal  hero ;  certainly  I  was  curious 
to  see  whether  an  idol  of  my  boyhood  could  bear 
the  test  of  the  scrutiny  of  disillusioned  middle 
age.  Few  of  the  heroes  of  my  youth  have  stood 


352  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

such  a  test.  I  had  tried  it  with  Nelson ;  and  I  still 
regard  him  the  "greatest  sailor  since  the  world 
began" ;  but  his  character  did  not  stand  the  per- 
sonal test.  Self  was  too  prominent.  But  in  Gen- 
eral Lee  I  was  not  disappointed.  He  was  greater 
than  I  had  ever  dreamed.  There  is  absolutely 
no  littleness  in  that  majestic  man.  "In  God  and 
godlike  men  we  put  our  trust."  Surely  to  our 
hero  Tennyson's  words  are  as  appropriate  as  to 
the  great  Duke : 

The  statesman-warrior,  moderate,  resolute, 

Whole  in  himself,  a  common  good. 

.     .     .     man  of  amplest   influence, 

Yet  clearest  of  ambitious  crime, 

Our  greatest,  yet  with  least  pretense, 

Great  in  council  and  great  in  war, 

Foremost  captain  of  his  time, 

Rich  in  saving  common  sense, 

And,  as   the  greatest  only  are, 

In  his  simplicity  sublime. 

O  good  gray  head  which  all  men  knew, 

O  voice  from  which  their  omens  all  men  drew, 

O  iron  nerve  to  true  occasion  true, 

O  fall'n  at  length  that  tower  of  strength 

Which  stood  four-square  to  all  the  winds  that  blew ! 


XV. 
OUR  OLD  COUNTRY  SCHOOL. 

IT  was  before  the  days  of  the  public  school 
system,  and  ours  was  a  private  neighborhood 
school  where  everybody  was  expected  to  pay 
tuition.  It  was  a  well-to-do  neighborhood,  and 
all  the  children  went  to  school.  The  attendance 
was  generally  large,  sometimes  reaching  perhaps 
a  total  of  seventy-five.  Everything  was  taught 
in  the  school,  from  A  B  C  to  the  Latin  and 
Greek  required  for  college,  and  all  the  subjects 
by  the  single  teacher,  the  daily  school  period  cov- 
ering four  hours  in  the  forenoon  and  three  to 
four  in  the  afternoon.  Perhaps  1860  was  the 
banner  year  in  the  history  of  the  school ;  for  we 
had  that  year  a  graduate  of  the  South  Carolina 
College,  about  twenty- four  years  old,  tall  (six 
feet,  two),  handsome — a  genial,  sympathetic, 
magnetic,  born  teacher,  like  "Auld  Domsie."  He 
was  a  good  scholar  (I  think  he  had  been  second- 
honor  man),  loved  boys  and  girls,  and  was  the 
pride  and  honor  of  the  school  and  of  the  neigh- 
borhood. A  chance  visitor  would  have  guessed 
his  popularity  in  midsummer  from  the  long  row 
23  (353) 


354  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

of  mellow  apples  and  luscious  peaches  on  his  desk, 
daily  presented  to  him  by  his  girls  and  boys. 

The  "three  R's"  formed  naturally  the  great 
bulk  of  the  work  of  the  school,  and  the  pupils' 
chief  attention  was  given  to  spelling,  penman- 
ship, ciphering,  geography,  and  parsing.  Doubt- 
less the  most  successful  form  of  mental  discipline 
in  that  school  was  spelling.  It  was  perhaps  a 
tradition,  handed  down  from  teacher  to  teacher, 
to  close  the  day  with  a  spelling  match  of  the 
whole  school.  The  book  spelled  from  was  the 
Abridged  Webster's  Dictionary,  the  lesson  at 
least  a  page,  and  the  line  of  spellers  extended 
along  the  whole  side  of  the  schoolroom  and 
doubled  back  at  the  end.  The  great  honor  was 
to  stand  "head,"  and  this  post  was  held  until  the 
occupant  missed  a  word  and  was  turned  down. 
Our  best  speller  was  a  girl  named  Mary,  called 
"Puss"  for  short.  She  had  never  distinguished 
herself  in  any  way  until  her  ambition  to  stand 
at  the  head  of  the  spelling  class  took  possession 
of  her.  She  studied  the  dictionary  all  day  at 
school,  perhaps  dreamed  it  at  home  at  night.  At 
any  rate,  her  position  was  usually  "head,"  and 
in  her  hands  it  was  almost  impregnable.  I  re- 
member standing  once  for  three  whole  weeks 
second,  eager  and  alert,  hoping  and  praying  that 
"Puss"  would  miss ;  but  she  did  not.  Now,  a 


Our  Old  Country  School.  355 

great  change  took  place  in  "Puss"  as  she  grew 
toward  womanhood.  She  had  been  a  small,  sal- 
low, sandy-haired,  unattractive  girl ;  but  after  her 
most  successful  season  in  the  dictionary  spelling 
class,  she  suddenly  blossomed  out  into  a  hand- 
some, winsome  maiden.  Later  she  wore  a  stylish 
beaver,  dressed  fashionably  (so  my  mother  and 
sister  said),  and  had  her  brother  drive  her  to  the 
village  church  when  there  was  no  service  at  the 
''chapel."  In  due  time  she  made  the  best  match 
of  the  neighborhood.  I  suppose  it  was  only  na- 
ture at  work  on  "Puss,"  but  somehow  I  have  al- 
ways believed  it  was  the  spelling  class  that  started 
"Puss"  toward  the  top  in  beauty  as  well  as  in 
matrimonial  success.  We  hear  a  good  deal  these 
days  about  the  advantages  our  children  have  in 
present  school  methods  over  the  old,  even  in 
spelling.  My  boy  certainly  has  an  easier  time 
spelling  than  I  ever  had.  The  process  of  learning 
to  spell  the  English  language  has  been  simplified 
so  that  ten  or  twenty  written  words  at  a  lesson, 
perhaps  a  day,  are  supposed  to  suffice  for  him. 
All  very  good — only  he  does  not  learn  to  spell. 
And  when  I  was  called  on  to  speak  on  the  sub- 
ject at  a  meeting  of  the  State  Teachers'  Associa- 
tion, I  promptly  angered  everybody  by  saying 
that  the  process  in  the  public  schools  was  a 
premium  on  dawdling;  that  I  knew  it  from 


356  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

a  boy  who  had  been  studying  for  three  years  at 
the  rate  of  ten  written  words  a  lesson,  and  my 
estimate  was  that  if  he  spelled  all  his  life  up  to 
threescore  and  ten,  then  went  to  heaven,  it  would 
take  him  at  that  rate  at  least  a  thousand  years 
in  the  land  of  the  blessed  to  get  a  mastery  of 
English  spelling. 

Since  I  began  to  write  more  than  forty  years 
have  slipped  away  from  me ;  and  I  see  once  more 
the  clear  old  schoolhouse  within  a  stone's  throw 
of  the  Methodist  church  (Andrew  Chapel),  the 
neighborhood  gravestones  visible  from  its  front 
windows.  It  was  a  frame  building,  weather- 
boarded  and  unceiled,  about  forty  feet  by  fifteen. 
There  was  a  chimney  at  each  end  of  the  single 
room,  and  a  great  writing-desk  clear  across 
the  center  which  made  practically  two  compart- 
ments, the  north  side  for  the  girls,  the  south 
side  for  the  boys.  At  recitation  there  was  no 
distinction  of  sex.  On  Asbury  Townsend  in 
1859,  whom  all  the  pupils  feared,  and  Alpheus 
Watson  in  1860,  whom  all  loved,  probably  no 
tricks  were  played.  The  former  believed  in  Sol- 
omon's precept,  "Spare  the  rod  and  spoil  the 
child,"  and  I  doubt  if  any  boy  could  have  boasted 
that  Mr.  Townsend  had  never  whipped  him.  My 
oldest  brother,  I  remember,  went  to  the  war  in 
1861  with  the  avowed  intention,  if  he  should  ever 


Our  Old  Country  School.  357 

be  engaged  in  the  same  battle  with  him,  to  shoot 
his  old  teacher  in  return  for  all  the  floggings 
he  had  got.  But,  of  course,  that  was  only  a  boy's 
talk.  He  was  an  excellent  teacher,  who  believed 
whipping  good  for  us  physically  and  morally,  and 
we  respected  while  we  feared  him.  But  Rever- 
end Henry  Bass  (1863),  who  was  somewhat  ec- 
centric as  well  as  very  near-sighted,  was  so  good 
a  mark  that  it  would  not  have  been  boy  and  girl 
human  nature  not  to  take  advantage  of  him.  It 
was  great  fun  to  see  his  face  sometimes  when 
he  went  to  the  front  door  in  the  morning  with 
the  big  hand-bell  and  produced,  as  he  swung  it, 
not  clear  bronze  notes,  but  only  dull  thuds  from 
the  paper-wrapped  clapper.  Sometimes,  too,  as 
he  took  his  chair  he  would  leap  up  abruptly  and 
find  a  pin  stuck  up  through  the  split-bottom.  The 
best  fun  of  the  girls  was  to  engage  in  the  for- 
bidden cracking  of  nuts  on  the  hearth,  just  to  see 
Mr.  Bass  rush  at  the  stone  left  behind  by  the  cul- 
prit. Sometimes  the  real  stone  was  gone  and  a 
hot  one  left  in  its  place,  which  he  grabbed  up 
and  dropped  precipitately.  Of  course  everybody 
tittered,  but  no  girl  ever  acknowledged  her  fault. 
Still  better  fun  for  the  school  was  a  trick  often 
played  upon  him  at  evening  prayers.  He  stood 
at  the  end  of  the  long  writing-desk,  but  while 
he  was  reading  the  lesson  from  the  Bible  not 


358  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

seldom  a  mischievous  boy  or  girl  would  pull  up 
the  tail  of  his  long  coat  and  fill  his  pocket  with 
peach  stones.  Ah,  if  grown  people  could  only 
continue  to  find  fun  in  such  simple  tricks  as 
school  children  enjoy,  how  full  of  laughter  life 
would  be !  But  the  greatest  fun  that  ever  hap- 
pened was  when  some  luckless  man  rode  by  the 
schoolhouse  and  called  out,  "School  butter !"  In- 
stantly every  boy,  without  waiting  for  leave, 
leaped  out  of  the  door  and  gave  chase.  If  the 
offender  was  caught,  he  was  sure  to  pay  dearly 
for  his  folly  by  a  mud-balling,  a  beating,  or  a 
ducking. 

But  could  I  go  back  now  to  the  old  school- 
house,  I  would  seek  first  the  names  of  the  big 
boys  of  1860  rudely  cut  or  scrawled  on  the 
walls,  each  name  generally  bracketed  with  that 
of  his  sweetheart.  I  have  often  thought  it  a  pity 
that  the  old  schoolhouse  was  not  built  of  stone ; 
for  our  big  boys  all  volunteered  early  in  the  war, 
and  of  several  of  them  the  rude  scrawl  on  the 
schoolhouse  wall  is  the  only  epitaph  in  the  world : 
for  example,  of  Lewis  Carter,  who  died  at  the 
front  in  Arkansas ;  of  Vint  Carter,  who  died  in 
Virginia ;  of  Jeff  McCants,  who  was  shot  through 
the  neck  in  one  of  the  early  battles ;  of  Bob 
Rampy,  who  died ;  and  of  Moon  Jones  and  Hart 
Rothrock  and  Tom  Franklin,  who  were  killed. 


Our  Old  Country  School.  359 

Bob  Smith  and  Wister  Watson  and  our  beloved 
teacher,  Alpheus  Watson,  came  home  from  the 
war  to  die  of  typhoid  fever,  and  a  marble  slab 
commemorates  each;  but  the  bones  of  the  rest 
fill  somewhere  nameless  trenches.  How  well  I 
remember  Tom  Franklin's  return  on  furlough, 
wounded  in  the  big  toe,  in  1863,  and  the  trium- 
phant rounds  he  made  in  the  neighborhood,  ac- 
companied by  Mr.  Carter,  the  best  friend  of  all 
the  young  fellows.  His  whole  stay  was  an  ova- 
tion ;  and  not  without  its  pathos,  for  he  returned 
to  the  war,  and  some  time  afterwards  fell  at  the 
Wilderness.  That  name  brings  up,  too,  the  im- 
age of  another  soldier,  young  Moore,  from  Tex- 
as, a  kinsman  of  my  mother's,  who  had  been 
shot  in  the  thigh  at  the  Wilderness,  and  when 
he  got  out  of  the  field  hospital  came  to  us  in 
South  Carolina  to  recruit.  He  used  to  tell,  I 
remember,  how  General  Lee  tried  to  lead  his 
brigade  (Gregg's)  to  the  charge  at  the  Wilder- 
ness, and  how  at  the  sight  men  shed  tears  "who 
had  not  wept  since  their  mothers  whipped  them 
last."  We  children  went  round  with  him,  as  Mr. 
Carter  had  gone  with  Tom  Franklin,  and  it 
seemed  as  good  as  the  "Odyssey"  to  hear  his  war 
stories.  But  when  he  was  quite  well  he  returned 
to  the  war,  and  some  time  afterwards  we  learned 
that  a  more  fatal  bullet  had  found  him. 


360  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

None  of  our  young  heroes  was  conscripted. 
They  were  all  in  the  army  before  the  first  con- 
script act  was  passed.  My  oldest  brother  was 
seventeen  and  expecting  to  enter  college  in  Oc- 
tober, 1 86 1  ;  and  our  mother  never  let  him  at- 
tend a  "muster"  in  the  summer  except  in  the 
company  of  our  neighbor,  Mr.  Carter,  who  was 
to  keep  him  from  volunteering.  He  got  off  to 
college;  but  early  in  November,  when  his  eight- 
eenth birthday  came,  he  volunteered  with  most 
of  the  rest  of  the  Wofford  students.  As  the 
younger  fellows  gradually  attained  military  age, 
they  too  went ;  and  when  the  last  call  came,  in 
1864  (from  sixteen  to  sixty),  it  seemed  to  verify 
General  B.  F.  Butler's  characterization  of  it — • 
"robbing  both  the  cradle  and  the  grave."  It 
looked  pitiable  in  the  case  of  some  boys  who  were 
small  for  sixteen,  as  was  the  case  with  my  broth- 
er Frank ;  but  none  of  them  shirked.  This  call 
broke  up  even  the  village  school ;  for  Principal 
Watson  went  out  with  his  larger  boys,  and  the 
little  ones  had  holiday  till  the  war  ended. 

Passing  some  months  ago  through  Chicago, 
where  there  are  over  two  million  people,  just 
after  I  had  been  reading  of  General  Lee  holding 
all  the  winter  of  1864-65  a  line  over  thirty  miles 
long  with  only  thirty-five  thousand  men.  I  began 
to  wonder  if  it  was  possible  that  the  fighting 


Our  Old  Country  School.  361 

force  of  a  dozen  states  was  so  reduced.  Then 
I  thought  of  our  own  neighborhood — the  only 
district  in  the  world  with  which  I  was  thoroughly 
acquainted — and  I  could  recall  in  a  radius  of 
three  miles  only  one  young  fellow  who  shirked. 
He  was  small  of  stature,  and  did  not  grow  any 
older  for  three  years;  but  at  last  even  he  got  in, 
I  think.  There  were  two  cases  in  the  outlying 
region  where  an  old  hurt  to  a  limb  brought  a 
healthy-looking  man  again  to  his  crutches,  and 
where  an  arm  became  paralyzed;  but  outside  of 
these  three  cases  in  the  range  of  my  knowledge, 
even  gossip  found  no  room  for  charges ;  the  fight- 
ing men  were  all  at  the  front. 

I  mentioned  above  that  my  brother's  college, 
Wofford,  was  almost  depopulated  in  1861,  and 
the  following  comparison  of  the  University  of 
Virginia  and  Harvard  illustrates  the  point:  In 
1861  Harvard  had  896  students;  the  University 
of  Virginia,  604.  From  Harvard  73  students 
joined  the  first  army  of  invasion;  from  the  Uni- 
versity of  Virginia  one-half  volunteered  at  that 
time.  Harvard  had  a  total  of  1,040  in  the  ar- 
mies and  navies  of  the  United  States;  the  Uni- 
versity of  Virginia,  over  2,000  in  the  Confeder- 
ate service.  Of  Harvard's  1,040,  only  155  lost 
their  lives ;  of  the  University  of  Virginia  stu- 
dents, over  400. 


XVI. 
A  UNIVERSITY  FOR  THE  PEOPLE. 

"How  long  do  you  expect  to  stay  here  ?"  asked 
President  Eliot  the  day  I  reached  Harvard.  "As 
long  as  my  money  lasts,"  I  answered.  "Make  it 
last!"  he  said.  "Make  up  your  mind  to  stay  as 
long  as  you  want  to  stay.  Our  boys  go  out  into 
the  hayfields  in  summer;  they  do  anything  to 
earn  money  to  go  on  with  their  studies."  He 
advised  me  to  go  for  my  coaching  in  German  to 
a  young  North  Carolinian  of  the  senior  class 
who  was  tutoring  his  way  through  college,  say- 
ing, "He  is  coaching  my  son  Charles  in  Ger- 
man." That  remark  of  President  Eliot's  and 
my  association  with  Patton  gave  me  a  new  view 
of  the  opportunities  and  possibilities  open  to 
young  Americans  of  getting  an  education.  I 
had  never  seen  any  one  working  his  way  through 
college ;  since  then  I  have  found  much  interest 
and  pleasure  in  watching  the  careers  of  unmon- 
eyed  but  ambitious  students.  College  doors  are 
portals  that  open  upon  the  fairest  realms  of 
life,  and  in  America  these  are  never  sealed  to 
youth  who  are  determined  to  have  an  education. 
(362) 


A  University  for  the  People.  363 

Let  me  tell  of  some  careers  at  this  institution — 
a  university  for  the  people.1 

When  my  house  was  building,  some  years 
ago,  a  Norwegian  carpenter  told  me  of  his  son, 
a  bright  boy  and  fond  of  books.  The  boy  was 
in  the  high  school,  and  the  father  said:  "I  am 
going  to  put  him  just  as  far  as  I  can."  What 
puts  such  ideas  of  higher  education  for  their 
children  into  the  heads  of  workingmen?  Our 
system  of  public  education.  The  carpenter  has 
little  money  and  pays  small  taxes,  but  the  state 
gives  his  boy  as  good  an  opportunity  as  the  rich 
man's  son.  The  high  school  will  cost  him  noth- 
ing, and  the  whole  university  course  is  open  to 
him  for  ten  dollars  a  semester.  Just  herein  lies 
the  greatest  advantage  that  the  Wisconsin  work- 
ingman  has  over  the  Tennessean.  Good  public 
schools  are  universal  in  this  state;  their  advan- 
tages are  more  generally  utilized ;  it  is  more  com- 
mon to  find  sons  and  daughters  of  workingmen 
getting  a  university  education.  But  concrete  ex- 
amples prove  more  than  generalizations. 

Another  laborer,  who  helped  in  laying  the  sod 
when  my  house  was  finished,  interested  me  be- 
cause he  was  the  hardest  worker  I  ever  saw,  and 
because  of  his  ambition  for  his  children's  edu- 

JWritten  at  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  August,  10x17. 


364  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

cation.  He  got  a  janitorship  soon  afterwards, 
and  soon  his  son  and  daughter  were  in  the  uni- 
versity. But  the  son  was  more  given  to  fiddling 
— his  father  came  from  Ole  Bull's  country — than 
to  studying,  and  his  case  came  before  the  fac- 
ulty. Unfortunately  the  faculty  as  a  body  hears 
much  more  of  the  students  that  need  discipline 
than  of  those  that  deserve  praise.  Knowing  the 
hard-working  father,  it  pained  me  to  see  the  boy 
put  on  probation  and  finally  drop  out  to  go  into 
business.  Still,  even  that  boy's  meager  education 
enables  him  now  to  earn  in  a  clerkship  consid- 
erably more  than  his  diligent  father  gets.  An- 
other janitor  died  a  few  years  ago  after  seven- 
teen years'  service.  He  was  a  faithful  man,  and 
got  a  good  janitor's  wage,  with  much  praise.  He 
had  been  thrifty,  and  had  made  fortunate  invest- 
ments— and  it  is  quite  as  easy  for  a  janitor  out 
of  his  smaller  salary  to  save  something  to  invest 
as  for  the  professor.  Certainly  the  German  shep- 
herd of  the  Agricultural  Department  owns  more 
valuable  property  than  most  university  profess- 
ors ;  and  he  has  earned  it,  for  he  knows  more 
about  sheep  than  I  do  about  Greek.  Well,  it  be- 
hooved our  janitor  to  make  investments,  for  he 
had  the  Irishman's  usual  family  luck — a  dozen 
children.  Several  of  these  attended  the  univer- 
sity for  a  longer  or  shorter  period,  and  two  of 


A  University  for  the  People.  365 

them  now  run  one  of  the  leading  Madison  gro- 
ceries (not  a  euphemism  here  for  saloon),  an- 
other is  a  dentist,  and  others  are  doing  well  in 
other  lines. 

From  the  platform  on  last  commencement  day 
I  noticed  in  the  audience  the  janitor  of  our  build- 
ing with  his  wife ;  and  reading  the  programme,  I 
found  the  name  of  his  daughter.  So  I  hurried 
down  after  the  exercises  to  congratulate  them. 
The  subject  of  the  senior  thesis  of  this  janitor's 
daughter  was  "The  Diction  of  Apuleius  in  the 
Psyche  and  Cupido."  Latin  has  always  been  her 
favorite  study,  and  at  her  graduation  it  was  her 
ambition  to  teach  Latin  in  a  high  school.  But 
she  did  something  even  better — she  was  soon 
happily  married.  The  janitor  wished  to  give  his 
son  also  a  university  course,  but  the  boy  would 
not  take  it.  He  was  stage-struck.  The  father 
preferred  some  regular  business,  but  what  could 
he  do?  Desire  to  do  out-of-the-way  things  is 
often  a  sign  of  genius ;  oftener  still,  it  is  true,  an 
indication  of  unbalanced  brain.  Two  of  my  ac- 
quaintances have  been  troubled  about  the  stage — 
the  janitor,  whose  son  wants  to  act,  and  the  judge, 
whose  son  wants  to  write  plays.  The  stage  fever 
is  somewhat  in  the  air  here.  Robert  La  Follette 
wanted  to  go  upon  the  stage  nearly  thirty  years- 
ago,  but  an  actor  told  him  that  the  chances  of 


366  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

supreme  success  were  against  a  man  only  five  feet 
six  in  height.  So  Mr.  La  Follette  went  into  the 
law,  but  his  daughter  is  on  the  stage.  When  the 
Senate  is  not  in  session,  he  shows  on  Chautauqua 
platforms  how  some  other  public  men  act,  and 
his  daughter  is  before  the  footlights.  Five  feet 
six  may  keep  a  man  from  reaching  the  top  in 
stage-acting,  but  not  from  eminence  in  all  lines. 
Witness  Bonaparte,  Nelson,  John  Wesley,  Keats. 
Mr.  La  Follette  has  made  his  mark — Congress- 
man, Governor,  Senator,  and  presidential  candi- 
date. 

Mr.  La  Follette  is  a  conspicuous  example  of  a 
man  who  worked  his  way  through  college — by 
teaching  school  at  intervals — and  did  big  things 
afterwards.  His  classmate,  President  Van  Hise, 
is  another.  He  entered  the  university  in  1875, 
with  advanced  standing  sufficient  to  enable  him 
to  get  his  diploma  in  three  years;  but  he  had 
never  had  access  to  a  library  before,  and  wisely 
determined  to  read  more  and  graduate  in  four 
years.  From  the  end  of  his  sophomore  year  he 
worked  his  way  in  the  university,  leaving  the 
family  resources  to  help  the  younger  children  to 
an  education.  And  that  reminds  me  of  his  pred- 
ecessor. In  his  opening  address  to  the  students 
.just  after  I  came  here.  President  Adams  said:  "I 
worked  my  way  through  college,  and  was  poorer 


A  University  for  the  People.  367 

than  any  of  you;  but  I  saved  money  enough  in 
my  freshman  year  to  buy  a  dozen  good  books 
in  general  literature,  and  I  read  them.  And  I 
am  prouder  of  that  than  of  anything  else  I  ever 
did."  My  venerable  colleague,  the  Emeritus 
Professor  of  Greek,  delights  to  tell  me  how  he 
used  to  employ,  twenty  years  ago,  a  blue-eyed, 
sunny-faced  lad  to  run  the  lawn-mower  over  his 
grass.  Now  the  young  man  is  head  of  the  great- 
est state  library  in  the  country.  About  that  same 
time  a  tall  young  German,  one  of  a  numerous 
family  of  boys  and  girls,  was  alternately  attend- 
ing a  normal  college  (afterwards  the  university) 
and  teaching  country  schools ;  now  he  is  full 
Professor  of  Economics  in  the  university  and  a 
member  of  the  Rate  Commission  of  the  state. 
Near  the  time  of  President  Van  Hise  and  Sena- 
tor La  Follette  a  young  man  applied  for  entrance 
to  the  engineering  department,  very  poor  and  de- 
ficient in  preparation;  but  the  faculty  voted  to 
give  him  a  trial.  Four  years  afterwards  he  pre- 
sented an  epoch-making  senior  thesis,  and  some 
years  later  invented  a  new  cotton  tie ;  he  is  now 
perhaps  the  wealthiest  man  in  Madison  and  a 
member  of  the  board  of  regents  of  the  univer- 
sity. 

Four  out  of  the  five  conspicuously  successful 
men  already  alluded  to  bear  names  that  show  for- 


368  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

eign  origin — another  proof  that  America  is  a 
haven  of  opportunity  for  the  whole  world.  And 
all  the  rest  came — at  least  their  fathers  did — from 
Northern  Europe.  When  we  came  to  Madison, 
in  1894,  my  son  met  in  Sunday  school  a  boy 
whose  father  had  charge  of  the  hogs  on  the  uni- 
versity farm.  That  does  not  sound  as  poetic  and 
dignified  as  Eumaeus,  the  swineherd,  in  Homer's 
''Odyssey" ;  but  the  calling  is  the  same,  and  the 
swineherd's  son  was  remarkable.  While  attend- 
ing the  high  school  he  was  earning  his  living 
as  stable-boy  for  a  doctor,  and  he  kept  this  up 
through  the  science  course  in  the  university.  The 
two  boys  used  to  take  long  walks  Sunday  after- 
noons, the  son  of  the  swineherd  repeating  long 
passages  from  "In  Mernoriam"  or  "Hamlet"  or 
the  whole  of  Gray's  "Elegy."  My  son  always 
said  that  he  found  more  enthusiasm  for  poetry 
in  this  chum  than  in  any  other  student.  Well, 
that  boy  is  doubtless  now  trying  to  be  a  poet, 
some  reader  has  probably  guessed.  No;  he  fin- 
ished his  science  and  medical  courses,  and  is  now 
a  rising  physician  in  a  suburb  of  Milwaukee. 

Axel  Johnson  was  a  Swede  and  a  blacksmith 
in  the  car  shops  at  Waukesha.  He  was  grown, 
had  an  old  mother  to  support,  and  was  almost 
illiterate ;  but  he  longed  for  an  education,  for  he 
felt  it  his  duty  to  preach  the  gospel.  Entering 


A  University  for  the  People.  369 

Carroll  College  Academy  in  the  little  boys'  class 
— none  of  the  rest  much  above  his  knees — he  fin- 
ished the  whole  course  in  three  years  and  became 
an  assistant  teacher  in  the  academy.  He  used  in 
those  days  to  wheel  the  long  distance  from  Wau- 
kesha  to  Madison — sixty  miles — to  be  examined 
in  the  Greek  he  was  reading  under  my  direction. 
But  just  before  his  graduation  from  the  univer- 
sity disease  cut  short  a  career  of  unusual  promise. 
In  the  fall  of  1896  the  Assistant  Professor  of 
Greek  told  me  of  a  freshman  who  read  his  Greek 
with  a  sonorous  swing  which  indicated  that  it 
was  sweet  to  his  mouth  and  his  ear.  He  was  a 
Norwegian,  and  was  supporting  himself  in  col- 
lege. I  taught  him  a  while,  and  one  day  asked 
him  to  stop  after  class.  "Mr.  A.,"  said  I,  "God 
Almighty  has  done  his  part ;  you  can  do  the  rest 
— you  can  be  a  Greek  scholar,  if  you  will."  He 
was  a  stalwart  youth,  and  was  asked  to  go  on 
the  boat  crew  in  his  freshman  year.  When  he 
came  to  me  about  it,  I  said:  "Well,  you  know 
what  generally  happens ;  when  a  man  gets  on  one 
of  the  varsity  teams,  it  usually  means  good-by 
to  the  highest  scholarship."  "I  understand  the 
risk/'  he  said;  "and  I  give  you  my  word,  if  I 
find  my  rowing  interferes  with  my  class  stand- 
ing, I  will  give  it  up."  "If  you  can  live  up  to 
that  resolution,"  I  said,  "you  are  safe;  you  can 
24 


370  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

stay  on  the  crew,  and  it  will  be  a  good  thing  for 
you."  He  rowed  all  four  years,  was  captain  in 
his  senior  year,  and  missed  winning  the  race  that 
year  only  because  of  a  floating  berry-crate.  He 
was  the  best  combination  I  have  ever  known  of 
high  scholarship  and  athletic  prowess,  and  his 
health  was  superb.  He  made  his  way  at  the  uni- 
versity by  tutoring  and  winning  prizes  and  schol- 
arships, took  his  Ph.D.  at  Harvard  in  1903,  was 
sent  to  Europe  on  a  traveling  fellowship,  and  is 
now  in  the  faculty  of  Princeton  University. 

One  September  I  wrent  on  a  tramp  with  three 
members  of  the  German  department,  the  trio 
furnishing  further  conspicuous  proof  that  Amer- 
ica is  a  haven  of  opportunity  for  foreigners.  One 
was  a  Saxon  and  head  of  the  German  depart- 
ment— the  largest  department  of  German  in  the 
United  States ;  another  a  Bohemian  and  of  re- 
markable promise  in  comparative  philology;  the 
third  was  a  young  Russian.  The  last  was  a 
member  of  the  senior  class  and  making  his  way 
by  teaching  German.  He  had  never  been  in  Ger- 
many, but  had  learned  the  language  in  Milwau- 
kee— but  who  does  not  know  that  Milwaukee  is 
one  of  the  most  German  cities  of  the  world? — 
and  is  a  proverb  in  the  German  department  for 
his  accurate  knowledge  of  the  language.  He 
took  Greek  with  me  one  year,  and  led  all  the 


A  University  for  the  People.  371 

rest.  Now  he  has  charge  of  the  German  depart- 
ment in  the  East  Division  High  School,  Milwau- 
kee. He  wants  to  earn  money  to  enable  him  to 
take  a  graduate  course,  and  after  a  while  he  will 
be,  I  predict,  a  professor  in  the  university. 

The  examples  cited  above,  if  they  may  be  ac- 
cepted as  typical,  prove  sufficiently  that  our  State 
University  offers  golden  opportunities  to  young 
men  who  have  talent  and  diligence,  and  lack  only 
money;  but  how  about  young  women?  Not  far 
from  Madison  is  a  Norwegian  rural  community 
that  supports  a  good  high  school  for  farmers' 
children,  and  there  is  always  a  strong  delegation 
from  that  community  in  the  university.  Two 
girls  from  there  in  1901  were  cook  and  house- 
maid, respectively,  in  the  family  of  a  law  pro- 
fessor. The  year  previous  their  brother  had 
graduated  from  the  College  of  Law  and,  as  pres- 
ident of  his  class,  had  the  duty  of  introducing 
to  the  audience  the  orator  of  the  day,  Justice 
Brewer,  of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court. 

Mrs.  said  the  two  girls  were  out  that  day 

in  their  best  clothes,  in  a  flutter  of  excitement  at 
the  idea  of  seeing  their  brother  (whom  their 
wages  had  helped  through  the  university)  intro- 
duce to  a  university  audience  the  great  Wash- 
ington jurist.  It  was  indeed  a  unique  situation, 
such  an  event  as  could  happen  probably  only  in 


372  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

a  western  state  university.  One  of  these  two 
girls  was  the  next  year  an  applicant  to  the  loan 
fund  committee,  of  which  I  was  chairman,  for 
the  scholarship  which  good  Mrs.  Doyon,  of  Madi- 
son, when  she  went  to  heaven  a  few  years  ago, 
left  to  help  poor  girls  get  a  university  education. 
Her  chief  competitor  was  a  young  woman  of 
French  name  who  was  supporting  herself  by 
manicuring  among  the  girls.  Both  had  good 
class  records,  but  were  heavily  handicapped  by 
having  to  devote  so  much  time  to  self-support. 
It  was  hard  to  decide  between  them,  and  both 
got  help.  Later  I  was  much  pleased  when  I 
met  the  young  lady  of  French  name  doing  ex- 
cellent work  as  a  teacher  of  history  in  a  Wis- 
consin high  school.  The  same  energy  and  buoy- 
ancy that  sustained  her  in  her  hard  course  of 
study  and  self-support  in  the  university  makes 
her  now  an  attractive  and  successful  high-school 
teacher. 

It  was  in  1900,  I  think,  that  I  offered  a  motion 
in  faculty  meeting  just  to  get  appointed  on  the 
loan  fund  committee ;  for  I  wanted  to  help  one 
of  my  pupils.  She  was  a  bright,  good-looking 
girl  of  German  name,  who  had  been  earning  her 
way;  that  was  honorable  and  did  not  discount 
her  in  the  university,  but  it  took  much  valuable 
time.  She  got  the  Doyon  scholarship,  graduated 


A  University  for  the  People.  373 

a  year  or  two  later,  and  soon  married,  making  the 
most  brilliant  match  that  any  university  girl  has 
made  in  my  time.  It  was  a  love  match,  too ;  and 
who  will  say  that  her  success  is  less  than  that  of 
the  young  men  who  became  professors  and  presi- 
dents, governors  and  senators? 

The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  is  this: 
Any  boy  or  girl  of  brains  and  ambition  can  win 
a  college  education  these  days.  Alexander  Ste- 
phens helped  fifty — maybe  it  was  a  hundred  and 
fifty — boys  get  an  education,  and  that  gave  him 
a  clearer  title  to  a  kingdom  in  the  skies  than  even 
having  been  Vice  President  of  the  Confederacy 
or  the  "Great  Commoner" ;  but  it  is  still  better 
for  boys  and  girls  to  help  themselves.  Williams 
College  had  a  big  loan  fund  when  I  was  there, 
which  \vas  wisely  administered — for  one  had 
to  attain  a  certain  class  rank  to  be  eligible  for 
help.  But  the  men  we  have  heard  most  about  of 
Williams  students  are  such  as  James  A.  Garfield, 
who  drove  a  canal  boat  before  going  to  Williams 
College  and  drove  other  things  at  college.  What 
a  satisfaction  it  must  be  to  his  spirit  in  the  Ely- 
sian  fields,  now  that  his  son,  Professor  H.  A. 
Garfield,  is  called  from  a  professorship  in  Prince- 
ton to  the  presidency  of  Williams !  And  his  son, 
Hon.  James  R.  Garfield,  is  sure  some  day  to  be 
talked  of  for  the  presidency  of  the  nation. 


XVII. 

FROM  PROVINCIAL  TO  NATIONAL 
FEELING. 

ON  January  I,  1874,  I  reached  Cambridge  to 
enter  upon  an  advanced  course  in  Harvard  Uni- 
versity. I  had  already  received  my  first  diploma 
from  Wofford  College,  and  had  earned  the 
money  for  the  Harvard  venture  by  teaching  my 
first  and  only  school.  The  undertaking  was  a 
considerable  one  for  a  youth  of  twenty-one  who 
had  never  been  out  of  his  own  state.  The  selec- 
tion of  Harvard  was  due  to  the  belief  that  it  was 
perhaps  the  foremost  American  institution  of 
learning,  and  to  the  fact  that  it  was  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Boston. 

At  a  Southern  college  in  those  days  a  new 
student  generally  sought  first  the  president. 
That  was  not  the  thing  to  do  at  Harvard ;  but  I 
have  always  been  glad  'that  I  did  not  know  any 
more  than  to  call  upon  President  Eliot,  so  kindly 
did  he  receive  me.  I  had  been  told  when  I  first 
sought  him  that  he  would  be  in  at  six  o'clock, 
but  not  that  he  would  have  company  for  dinner. 
But  he  excused  himself  to  his  guests,  received 
me  kindly,  and  gave  me  just  the  advice  I  needed 
(374) 


From  Provincial  to  National  Feeling.     375 

— e.  g.,  he  sent  me  for  my  Greek  to  the  young- 
Frederic  Allen,  Professor  Goodwin  being  then  in 
Italy.  "What  brought  you  to  Harvard?"  he 
asked  me.  When  I  had  given  him  some  reasons, 
he  said :  "I  did  not  know  but  that  the  literary 
reputation  of  the  college  might  have  drawn  you. 
Did  you  know  that  three-fourths  of  the  foremost 
authors  of  the  country  are  graduates  of  Har- 
vard?" 

Some  two  weeks  later  President  Eliot  met  me 
in  the  street,  recognized  me  immediately,  and 
asked  how  I  was  getting  on ;  then,  "What  stu- 
dents have  you  met  ?"  I  named  Patton,  of  North 
Carolina ;  Primer,  of  New  York ;  Ivy,  of  Mis- 
sissippi ;  Savage,  of  New  Hampshire ;  etc.  "I 
congratulate  you,"  said  he,  looking  kindly  down 
upon  me.  "You  have  fallen  in  with  some  of  the 
best  men  we  have."  I  have  long  since  realized 
that  my  student  acquaintance — select  young  men 
from  all  quarters  of  the  United  States — were  al- 
most as  important  a  part  of  my  development  as 
the  men  under  whom  I  studied,  though  these 
were  Child,  Lane,  Allen,  Everett,  Anderson, 
Bartlett.  The  general  environment  was  not 
without  strong-  influence  upon  me — for  instance, 
that  I  saw  daily,  as  I  went  from  University  Hall 
to  my  room  on  Cambridge  street,  the  house  that 
was  birthplace  and  residence  of  Oliver  Wendell 


376  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

Holmes;  that  I  saw  often  the  Washington  elm, 
the  fine  old  colonial  house  that  was  then  Long- 
fellow's residence  and  had  been  General  Wash- 
ington's headquarters,  and  the  Lowell  elms. 

It  was  not  long  before  my  chums,  Kimber,  of 
Pennsylvania,  and  Warder,  of  Ohio,  took  me, 
one  Sunday  evening,  to  hear  John  B.  Gough  in 
Tremont  Temple.  I  can  still  see  and  hear  Gough 
as  he  said  on  that  occasion :  "My  father  used  to 
drink  his  pint  of  Scotch  whisky  every  day,  and 
he  lived  to  be  ninety-four;  but  his  son  could  no 
more  drink  moderately  than  he  could  shoot  off 
a  powder  magazine  a  little  at  a  time."  Sundays 
were  largely  given  by  us  three  to  hearing  noted 
men  in  Cambridge  or  Boston,  and  it  was  not 
long  before  I  heard  in  Tremont  Temple  another 
temperance  speech  by  a  greater  orator  than 
Gough.  One  of  the  first  sentences  of  Wendell 
Phillips  on  this  second  occasion  was :  "The 
South  would  have  whipped  the  North  in  one 
year,  if  her  generals  hadn't  been  drunk;  the 
North  would  have  whipped  the  South  in  two 
years,  if  her  generals  hadn't  been  drunker."  I 
could  still  reproduce  much  of  this  speech.  But 
what  impressed  me  most  then  and  especially  lin- 
gers with  me  was  the  wonderful  quality  of  Wen- 
dell Phillips'  voice ;  it  rang  as  clear  and  sounded 
as  sweet  as  the  tone  of  a  silver  bell. 


From  Provincial  to  National  Feeling.     377 

It  was  in  that  same  Tremont  Temple  that  I 
heard  that  winter  Charles  Kingsley.  I  had 
bought  my  ticket  three  weeks  before,  thinking 
that  all  Boston  would  want  to  hear  Kingsley,  and 
was  somewhat  surprised  to  find  at  the  lecture 
that  perhaps  a  fourth  of  the  seats  had  not  been 
taken.  Presently  one  of  the  gentlemen  on  the 
platform  with  Kingsley  rose — a  spare  man,  with 
thin  face,  clean-shaven  except  for  the  mustache, 
and  abundant  hair.  He  came  to  the  edge  of  the 
platform  and  stood  for  several  moments  quietly 
looking  at  the  audience.  I  had  never  seen  any- 
thing quite  so  deliberate.  "When  I  wrote  'The 
Innocents  Abroad,'  "  he  finally  said,  "I  rather  ex- 
pected to  find  favor  with  the  clergy;  but  I  have 
never  been  called  on  before  to  perform  for  a 
clergyman  even  so  insignificant  and  unnecessary 
a  service  as  introducing  Charles  Kingsley." 

Still  another  Tremont  Temple  incident  stands 
out  in  my  memory — not  for  what  I  heard,  but 
for  what  I  did.  It  was,  perhaps,  on  a  Sunday 
morning  when  Dr.  Lorimer  was  to  preach  that 
a  negro  man  took  a  seat  by  me  in  the  gallery. 
He  was  as  well  dressed  and  doubtless  as  good  a 
man  as  I ;  but  he  was  black,  and  I  rose  instinct- 
ively, as  if  shot  up  by  springs  in  the  cushion,  and 
landed  in  another  place  where  white  men  were 
already  seated  on  each  side.  That  incident  re- 


378  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

calls  another  which  happened  a  little  before.  I 
had  gone  to  inquire  about  room  and  board  in 
Divinity  Hall.  Information  given  by  the  matron 
was  satisfactory,  but  I  thought  I  would  make 
further  inquiries  of  a  Mr.  Grimke,  whose  name 
I  found  registered  in  the  hall  from  my  native 
state.  That  name  belonged  to  one  of  the  first 
families  in  South  Carolina,  and  the  circle  he 
moved  in  ought  to  be  an  attractive  one.  I 
knocked  at  his  door;  Mr.  G.  opened  it, — and  he 
was  a  mulatto.  I  felt  like  falling  through  the 
floor,  though  I  did  not  betray  myself;  but  as  I 
went  downstairs  I  called  by  the  matron's  office 
to  say  that  I  would  not  take  board  at  Divinity 
Hall.  Nowadays  I  should  keep  my  seat,  of 
course,  if  a  decent-looking  black  man  sat  down 
by  me  in  church ;  but  under  the  same  circum- 
stances I  should  probably  still  avoid  Divinity 
Hall. 

Another  one  of  the  great  occasions  of  that 
winter  was  the  Sunday  evening  when  I  first 
heard  Phillips  Brooks,  who  used  to  preach  once 
a  month  for  the  Episcopal  Divinity  School  in 
Cambridge.  I  had  never  heard  any  human  be- 
ing speak  so  rapidly,  and  my  first  feeling  was  a 
protest  that  such  fine  things  should  be  poured 
out  in  such  a  stream  that  his  audience  could  not 
possibly  take  all  in.  But  the  next  moment  I 


From  Provincial  to  National  Feeling.     379 

was  swept  away  by  the  torrent  of  his  eloquence 
and  found  it  exhilarating,  when  once  in  full  sym- 
pathy with  him,  to  ride  on  that  rapid  current. 
The  text  was :  "Hid  with  Christ  in  God."  "They 
tied  him  to  a  post,"  said  the  preacher,  "and 
scourged  him,  and  imagined  they  were  hurting 
him.  But  it  was  as  if  men  stood  and  flung  water 
at  the  stars.  He  was  hid  in  God." 

Another  Sunday  it  was  a  female  speaker  that 
impressed  me — Mrs.  Livermore,  the  first  woman 
I  ever  heard  preach.  I  marveled,  as  I  sat  in  the 
rear  seat  in  a  large  church,  that,  though  she 
spoke  in  a  conversational  tone,  every  syllable 
reached  me  with  perfect  distinctness.  How  sim- 
ply and  powerfully  she  drew  a  kindly  lesson  of 
sympathy  from  the  little  hunchback  she  had  seen 
that  morning,  apparently  sensitively  aware  that 
every  eye  in  the  street  car  observed  his  de- 
formity ! 

But  the  most  potent  factor  in  my  transition 
from  provincial  to  national  feeling  was  the  death 
of  Charles  Sumner  and  the  ceremonies  attendant 
thereon  in  Boston.  "Now  the  slavery  question 
will  be  resurrected,"  I  thought,  "and  I  am  going 
to  hear  the  other  side."  First  there  was  a  pre- 
liminary meeting  in  Faneuil  Hall  before  the  dead 
statesman's  body  reached  Boston ;  and  among  the 
speakers  were  the  Governor,  General  Banks, 


380  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

Phillips  Brooks,  and  Edward  Everett  Hale.  Sun- 
day afternoon  I  heard  Colonel  Higginson  give 
a  eulogy  in  Music  Hall,  and  afterwards  was  car- 
ried rather  than  walked  in  the  great  throng  that 
crowded  into  the  statehouse  to  see  the  great 
abolitionist,  whose  body  lay  in  state,  guarded  by 
negro  soldiers. 

Kimber  and  I  went  over  to  Boston  to  try  to 
hear  Carl  Schurz  in  the  first  formal  official  eulo- 
gy. We  knew  that  the  tickets  had  all  been  long 
exhausted,  but  Kimber  suggested  that  the  chief 
of  police  might  be  able  to  help  us.  Captain  Sav- 
age received  us  as  kindly  as  if  that  had  been  part 
of  his  duty.  "Mr.  S.,"  said  he,  on  hearing  that 
I  was  a  South  Carolinian,  "you  are  the  very  man 
that  ought  to  hear  this  speech ;  and  if  I  could 
get  you  in  by  working  an  hour,  I'd  do  it.  But 
I  can't  do  any  more  than  anybody  else.  It's  a 
rainy  day,  however,  and  many  who  have  received 
tickets  will  not  brave  the  weather.  If  you  can 
wait  near  the  building  till  the  audience  is  seated, 
the  doors  will  be  thrown  open  and  you  will  find 
seats."  But  I  had  got  out  of  bed  with  a  bad 
sore  throat,  and  did  not  dare  stand  in  the  damp 
so  long,  so  I  went  home;  but  Kimber  stayed  and 
found  a  good  seat. 

For  the  eulogy  before  the  Legislature  by 
George  William  Curtis  I  was  more  fortunate. 


From  Provincial  to  National  Feeling.     381 

Mr.  Longfellow  met  my  friend  Kimber  in  the 
street  one  day,  and  asked,  "Do  you  think  Mr. 
S.  would  like  to  hear  George  William  Curtis' 
eulogy?"  "Why,  Mr.  Longfellow,"  replied  Kim- 
ber, "S.  would  rather  hear  a  good  speech  than 
to  eat."  It  should  be  stated,  perhaps,  that  I  had 
come  to  know  the  poet  without  obtruding  myself 
on  him.  One  day  Kimber  and  I  were  reading 
together  in  his  room  the  "Medea"  of  Euripides, 
when  the  servant  brought  up  a  card,  saying  that 
the  gentleman  was  waiting  downstairs.  "Would 
you  like  to  see  Mr.  Longfellow?"  asked  Kimber 
in  some  excitement.  "Of  course,"  I  replied. 
"Then  I'll  ask  him  to  come  up  here."  Kimber 
was  impulsive  and  probably  thought  only  of  the 
pleasure  he  would  give  me,  not  of  the  consider- 
ation due  the  poet ;  for  the  room  was  at  once  sit- 
ting-room and  bedroom,  and  there  were  only  two 
chairs.  But  Mr.  Longfellow,  who  had  stopped 
on  his  walk  to  leave  a  note  of  introduction  to 
Whittier  which  he  had  promised  to  Kimber,  came 
up  to  the  room  and  soon  made  us  feel  almost  as 
much  at  ease  as  if  he  had  been  still  a  student  and 
not  America's  most  popular  poet.  The  bed 
served  one  of  us  two  for  a  chair,  and  all  embar- 
rassment was  quickly  forgotten.  When  I  ex- 
pressed my  pleasure  at  meeting  him,  saying,  "I 
was  told  not  to  come  back  to  South  Carolina  un- 


382  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

less  I  had  seen  Mr.  Longfellow,"  he  kindly  an- 
swered, "Then  you  must  come  to  see  me";  and, 
turning  to  Kimber  at  parting,  he  added,  "You 
know  the  way  to  my  house;  you  must  bring 
Mr.  S." 

So  Mr.  Longfellow  gave  Kimber  tickets  for 
himself  and  me,  two  of  his  three  daughters  (for 
whom  he  had  received  them)  being  absent  from 
the  city.  We  sat  in  the  front  gallery  in  Music 
Hall,  directly  opposite  the  stage,  and  the  young- 
est Miss  Longfellow  pointed  out  to  us  the  no- 
tabilities, among  them  her  father,  Whittier, 
Holmes,  and  Emerson  seated  together.  I  re- 
member still  a  great  part  of  the  eulogy,  but 
nothing  was  more  dramatic  and  effective  than 
the  way  in  which  the  orator  repeated :  "  'But, 
Mr.  Sumner,  remember  there  are  two  sides  to 
every  question,'  said  the  chairman  of  the  dele- 
gation. 'Gentlemen,  to  this  slavery  question 
there  can  be  no  other  side/  indignantly  retorted 
the  Senator  as  he  drew  himself  up  to  his  great 
height." 

In  all  that  I  heard  in  connection  with  Sum- 
ner's  death  there  was  less  bitterness  toward  the 
South  than  I  had  anticipated.  I  think  nothing  in 
my  whole  experience  ever  did  more  to  liberalize 
me  than  the  attempt  to  hear  the  other  side  of  the 
slavery  question.  Personally  I  was  always  treat- 


From  Provincial  to.  National  Feeling.     383 

ed  at  least  as  well  as  if  I  had  been  a  New  Yorker 
instead  of  a  South  Carolinian.  A  remark  of  Mr. 
Longfellow's — "The  South  should  come  to  see 
the  North,  the  North  go  to  see  the  South ;  then 
the  war  would  be  over" — I  realized  to  be  not 
only  kindly,  but  true.  I  found  my  Appomattox 
in  Cambridge ;  I  had  seen  the  enemy  at  home  and 
surrendered  to  kindness.  I  left  Harvard  still  a 
Southerner  in  feeling,  yet  more  an  American. 


XVIII. 

FROM  HARVARD  TO  LEIPZIG  UNI- 
VERSITY. 

MY  first  definite  impulse  to  go  to  Germany 
was  due  to  a  remark  made  to  me  by  Professor 
Frederic  D.  Allen.  Meeting  me  one  morning 
on  the  Harvard  campus,  he  said :  "Mr.  Smith, 
you  must  go  to  Germany ;  if  you  want  to  be  a 
scholar,  you  must  go  to  Germany."  That  was 
all,  but  the  idea  lodged  in  my  soul.  The  thought 
had  been  the  dream  of  my  life ;  now  it  rankled, 
and  I  had  no  rest  till  it  was  settled  that  I  was 
to  go  to  Germany.  The  possibility  of  it  began 
to  take  form  when  my  friend  Patton,  one  Sun- 
day evening  when  we  were  going  to  take  supper 
with  Professor  and  Mrs.  Gurney,  said  to  me: 
"You  can  go  to  Germany  just  as  well  as  you 
can  stay  here ;  it  will  not  cost  any  more."  He 
had  spent  the  period  of  his  junior  year  in  Eu- 
rope, earning  his  way  as  he  went,  and  I  was  so 
much  impressed  by  what  he  said  that  I  wrote  to 
my  father  about  it.  His  assurance  soon  came 
that  he  would  help  me  financially,  and  of  course 
I  determined  to  go. 
(384) 


From  Harvard  to  Leipzig  University.    385 

It  was  the  27th  of  June,  1874,  that  Primer 
and  I  steamed  out  of  Boston  harbor.  We  were 
both  bound  for  Leipzig,  he  to  study  modern  lan- 
guages, I  ancient ;  and  after  a  very  short  stay  in 
London,  we  reached  Leipzig  July  13.  There  we 
spent  the  summer  studying  German,  so  as  to  be 
able  to  understand  the  lectures  in  the  autumn. 
The  first  exercise  I  attended  in  October  was  the 
opening  lecture  by  Professor  Georg  Curtius.  The 
large  lecture  room  was  full  of  students,  and  Bas- 
kervill  and  I  sat  together. 

That  little  incident  indicates  that  I  had  en- 
tered upon  a  larger  life  than  even  that  at  Har- 
vard. Four  young  men  from  four  different 
states  of  the  American  Union  happened  to  sit 
side  by  side  at  the  introductory  lecture  of  a  great 
German  professor.  Each  had  crossed  the  ocean, 
after  a  college  course  in  America,  to  study  in 
the  Fatherland.  Thirst  for  knowledge  and  schol- 
arly ambition  were  the  guiding  motives  of  all 
four,  and  each  was  bound  to  be  stimulated  and 
quickened  by  the  presence  and  acquaintance  of 
the  rest.  It  proved  to  be  so.  With  Baskervill 
— whose  acquaintance  I  had  made  that  summer 
— I  became  more  intimate  than  with  anybody 
else.  We  read  daily  in  his  room  Greek  and 
Latin  alternately  all  winter,  and  cemented  a 
friendship  that  lasted  till  his  death,  twenty-five 
25 


386  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

years  afterwards.  A  few  days  before  his  end  his 
wife  read  to  him  the  newspaper  announcement 
of  my  almost  fatal  fall  from  a  bicycle.  "Write 
to  him  at  once/'  he  said.  "It  is  the  friendship 
of  a  lifetime.  Such  things  must  not  be  neglect- 
ed." The  first  letter  I  wrote  after  my  recovery 
was  to  express  my  sympathy  for  him  in  his  ill- 
ness ;  but  he  died  a  few  hours  before  it  reached 
him.  He  was  right:  "Such  things  must  not  be 
neglected !"  Our  friendship  had  meant  much  to 
both  of  us.  Indeed,  the  whole  course  of  both 
lives  might  have  been  very  different  had  we 
never  met. 

Some  of  the  Americans  who  had  studied  at 
Leipzig  before  my  day  had  left  traditions  behind 
them.  Some  one  told  me  that  Frederic  D.  Allen 
a  month  after  his  arrival  in  Germany  could  con- 
verse with  considerable  ease  in  German.  He  was 
remembered  in  the  university  as  a  young  man 
of  great  promise.  It  gave  me,  his  sometime 
pupil,  a  thrill  of  delight  to  hear  an  article  of  his 
on  the  origin  of  the  hexameter  commended  in 
two  different  lecture  rooms  about  the  same  time ; 
and  naturally  he  was  glad  to  hear  through  me 
that  he  had  been  referred  to  as  an  authority  in 
lecture  rooms  of  the  great  university  where  he 
had  so  recently  sat  as  a  student.  Humphreys' 
room  was  pointed  out  to  me,  and  wonderful 


From  Harvard  to  Leipzig  University.     387 

stories  were  told  of  his  enormous  diligence  and 
his  scholarly  acquirements.  He  had  at  this  time 
just  been  called  to  Vanderbilt  University  to  be 
its  first  Professor  of  Greek.  It  seems  ridiculous 
now  to  those  who  for  more  than  thirty  years 
have  admired  Dr.  Humphreys'  wide  and  accu- 
rate scholarship  that  he  should  have  feared  that 
his  thesis  might  be  rejected,  or  he  might  be 
"plucked"  on  his  examination.  But  so  it  was. 
When  he  had  handed  in  the  thesis  he  was  in  an 
agony  of  suspense  till  one  day,  at  the  lecture  of  a 
distinguished  professor — I  think  it  wras  Ritschl — 
incidental  reference  was  made  to  a  dissertation 
recently  submitted  for  the  doctor's  degree  which 
contained  a  discussion  of  certain  linguistic  or 
metrical  phenomena  that  had  impressed  the  pro- 
fessor as  new  and  highly  important ;  this,  coupled 
with  the  assurance  that  the  dissertation  would 
undoubtedly  soon  be  published.  Humphreys  al- 
most fell  out  of  his  chair.  The  facts  referred  to 
were  in  his  own  thesis,  and  this  was  the  first  he 
had  heard  from  it.  When  the  lecture  was  over, 
he  walked  about  the  city  in  great  excitement; 
and  no  wonder,  for  praise  from  Ritschl  in  a  lec- 
ture was  praise  indeed.  Still  he  feared  the  final 
oral  examination,  and  did  not  let  any  of  his 
friends  know  that  it  was  impending,  but  slipped 
off  one  clay  in  full  dress, — one  stands  the  Doctor- 


388  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

Examen  in  swallow-tail  and  white  kids, — and 
only  when  it  was  over  announced  that  he  was 
Doctor.  That  dissertation,  by  the  way,  was 
epoche-machend,  and,  appearing  partly  as  the 
formal  thesis,  partly  later  in  the  form  of  metrical 
papers  in  the  "Transactions  of  the  American 
Philological  Association,"  gave  him  at  once  un- 
disputed rank  as  one  of  the  foremost  metricians 
of  America.  Only  last  January  (1907),  at  Wash- 
ington, I  heard  a  distinguished  New  York  schol- 
ar refer  to  Humphreys'  metrical  papers  of  the 
later  '/o's  as  showing  profounder  scholarship 
than  that  of  the  great  English  scholar  Monro. 

Some  little  incidents  connected  with  my  own 
examination  for  the  doctorate  are  still  fresh  in 
my  memory.  I  too  was  afraid,  even  after  my 
thesis  had  been  accepted,  that  I  might  be 
"plucked"  on  examination ;  and  I  too  slipped 
out  of  the  house  one  afternoon,  without  telling 
any  of  my  fellow-boarders,  to  stand  the  ordeal 
at  Ritterstrasse  10.  Between  the  acceptance  of 
the  dissertation  and  the  examination  I  had  a 
dream  one  night.  I  thought  I  was  in  the  ex- 
amination room,  and  the  Prokanzellar  was  there 
to  preside;  but  the  three  examiners  did  not  ap- 
pear. The  Prokanzellar  talked  pleasantly  with 
me,  as  he  always  did  when  I  called  at  his  office, 
and  a  whole  hour  went  by.  I  was  nervous,  but 


From  Harvard  to  Leipzig  University.     389 

the  Prokanzellar  chatted  kindly  on.  Finally,  he 
said :  "Well,  Mr.  S.,  it  is  evident  your  examiners 
have  forgotten  the  appointment,  and  I  shall  have 
to  give  you  a  written  examination."  I  took  pen 
and  paper,  and  he  began :  "First,  discuss  kohlen- 
sanres  Gas  (carbonic  acid  gas)  ;  secondly,  write 
a  history  of  the  city  of  New  York;  thirdly" —  I 
have  forgotten  what  that  was.  I  looked  up  in 
despair;  for  my  three  subjects  were  to  have  been 
history,  Greek,  and  Latin.  "I  might  write  some- 
thing," I  said  to  him,  "about  the  city  of  New 
York ;  but  I  do  not  know  anything  about  carbon- 
ic acid  gas,  and  the  third  subject  is  new  to  me. 
Besides,  what  could  one  write  in  an  hour  and  a 
quarter?"  "I  am  sorry,  sorry  for  you,"  said  the 
kind-hearted  Prokanzellar ;  "but  those  are  my  in- 
structions." Then  I  awoke  from  a  nightmare. 
The  next  time  I  called  on  the  Prokanzellar  I  told 
him  my  dream;  and  he  enjoyed  it  so  much  that 
he  told  it  to  some  of  his  colleagues  in  the  Profcs- 
soren-zimmer ,  causing  much  merriment.  I  still 
have  the  formal  official  note  of  invitation  to  the 
doctor-examination,  with  an  unofficial  postscript 
from  the  genial  Prokanzellar,  saying:  "And  we 
will  hope  that  it  will  not  come  to  carbonic  acid 
gas,  after  all."  The  day  before  the  examination  I 
called  upon  my  three  examiners,  as  etiquette  re- 
quired. I  had  heard  Hopkins'  story  of  the  ques- 


390  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

tion  put  to  him  about  the  locality  of  a  certain 
Greek  MS.  Professor  Curtius  had  asked  him: 
"Where  is  the  chief  MS.  of  ^Eschylus  and  Soph- 
ocles?" H.  had  paid  no  attention  to  that  sort  of 
tb.ing ;  but  he  remembered  the  Codex  Venetus  A 
of  the  Iliad,  and  ventured  the  answer:  "St. 
Mark's/'  "Why,  no!  Can't  you  recall  it?" 
risked  the  surprised  Professor.  Then  H.  calmly 
replied :  "Ich  habe  keine  Ahmmg."  Remembering 
chat  experience  of  H/s,  I  determined  to  throw 
myself  on  Professor  Lange's  mercy.  After  I 
had  left  him,  I  turned  back  from  the  antecham- 
ber ancl  said:  "Herr  Professor.  I  forgot  to  men- 
Lion  one  thing  that  is  on  my  mind."  "What  is 
that?"  he  asked  kindly.  "I  want  to  let  you  know 
in  advance  that  I  do  not  know  where  the  Latin 
MSS.  are;  but  I  have  Teuffel's  'History  of  Latin 
Literature/  and  I  can  turn  to  any  MS.  in  a 
moment.  .So  I  didn't  think  it  worth  while  to 
stow  them  away  in  my  brain."  "Never  mind, 
Mr.  S./'  said  the  genial,  blue-eyed  old  Professor, 
slapping  me  kindly  on  the  shoulder;  "I  don't 
know  where  they  are  myself."  Next  I  went  to 
Professor  Georg  Curtius.  He  had  sent  me 
word  by  his  famulus  that  he  must  see  me  that 
clay ;  so  I  was  a  little  anxious.  "Ah,  it  is  noth- 
ing," he  said,  "except  that  I  have  noticed  lately 
at  the  lectures  that  you  seem  pale  and  anxious. 


From  Harvard  to  Leipzig  University.     391 

I  just  wanted  to  encourage  you,  and  say  there 
is  no  need  to  be  nervous  about  your  examination. 
It  will  be  all  over  to-morrow  night,  anyway." 
After  that  I  don't  know  whether  I  walked  home 
or  flew.  I  was  excited,  for  I  hit  both  sides  of 
the  door  as  the  servant  let  me  out. 

Of  all  the  American  successors  of  Allen  and 
Humphreys  in  my  time,  Bloomfield  was  general- 
ly considered  the  ablest ;  and  his  career  at  Johns 
Hopkins  the  past  twenty-five  years  has  justified 
all  our  anticipations.  It  was  my  privilege  to  sit 
at  the  table  with  him  for  sixteen  months,  and  I 
have  never  known  a  man  who  could  strike  fire 
on  me  quicker  than  he  could.  I  sat  at  our  host's 
right,  he  diagonally  across  from  me  at  our  host- 
ess' right;  and  generally  at  dinner  he  would 
begin  conversation  by  asking  me:  "Well,  what 
did  Curtius  say  to-day?"  I  would  begin  to  tell 
him,  often  doubtless  rather  listlessly;  for  I  was 
usually  fagged  after  two  or  more  lectures.  Pres- 
ently he  would  object  to  some  position  Curtius 
had  taken,  and  before  we  were  aware  the  debate 
had  waxed  warm.  Dinner  would  pass,  dishes 
would  be  removed,  coffee  would  be  brought  in, 
all  would  go ;  and  still  Bloomfield  and  I  talked 
at  each  other  across  the  table.  Students  have 
told  me  in  recent  years  of  the  great  power  of  the 
man,  of  his  marvelous  command  of  pure,  choice, 


392  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

vigorous  English,  of  the  clearness  of  his  ideas 
and  his  forceful  expression  of  them.  I  met  him 
last  January  in  Washington  for  the  first  time 
since  the  old  Leipzig  days.  Twenty-five  years 
had  passed  since  we  met.  He  is  now  gray,  and 
I  am  bald ;  but  we  were  young  again  that  night. 
He  was  the  same  brilliant,  genial  fellow  I  had 
known  in  '80- '8 1,  and  that  wonderful  eye  has  its 
old  power  and  charm. 

In  my  two  periods  of  study  at  Leipzig  (1874- 
75  and  18/9-81)  I  was  thrown  with  such  men 
as  the  following:  Baskervill,  of  Vanderbilt; 
Phelan,  shortly  afterwards  member  of  Con- 
gress from  Memphis ;  N.  C.  Schaefer,  recently 
President  of  the  National  Educational  Associa- 
tion ;  Samuel  Ives  Curtiss  and  Scott,  of  Chicago 
Theological  Seminary ;  Casper  Rene  Gregory, 
for  many  years  now  professor  in  Leipzig  Uni- 
versity ;  Sihler,  of  Xew  York  University ; 
Primer,  of  Texas  University;  Paul  Cauer,  the 
Homeric  scholar  of  Germany;  Bloomfield,  of 
Johns  Hopkins ;  Carl  Roethe,  of  Goettingen  Uni- 
versity ;  Bristol,  of  Cornell ;  Lyon,  of  Harvard ; 
Green,  of  William-Jewell :  Hopkins,  of  Yale ; 
Smyth,  of  Harvard ;  Birge,  of  Wisconsin 
Genung,  of  Amherst:  Latimer.  of  Davidson 
Kerfoot,  of  the  Louisville  Theological  Seminary 
Ilberg  and  Wagner,  whose  names  I  run  across 


From  Harvard  to  Leipzig  University.     393 

often  in  German  publications.  It  is  association 
with  such  men  that  makes  potent  influences  for 
development,  and  one  should  seek  in  his  graduate 
or  university  work  the  centers  where  such  choice 
spirits  most  congregate.  They  make  the  atmos- 
phere that  quickens  the  germ  of  scholarship,  in 
which  it  grows  most  vigorously  and  comes  quick- 
est to  maturity. 


XIX. 

CHEYNE  ROW— HOW  DO  LONDONERS 
PRONOUNCE  IT? 

I  AM  an  admirer  of  Thomas  Carlyle,  and  on 
my  last  visit  to  London  made  a  pilgrimage  to 
Cheyne  Row.  It  was  a  long  distance  from  my 
room  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  British  Mu- 
seum ;  but  who  minds  riding  on  the  top  of  a 
'bus  through  London  streets,  where  "every  step 
is  history"?  and  who  doesn't  like  to  ask  direc- 
tions of  a  London  policeman  ?  The  policeman 
at  Trafalgar  Square,  whom  I  asked  for  a  'bus 
to  Cheyne  (SJulyuc)  Row,  was  at  a  loss  for  a 
moment,  but  when  I  mentioned  "Carlyle's 
house,"  he  said,  "Oh,  you  mean  Chine  Row."  I 
was  a  bit  surprised,  for  I  had  my  pronunciation 
from  one  who  had  got  his  in  London,  he  said. 
He,  too,  was  a  Carlylean,  and  had  read  "Sartor" 
seventeen  times,  carrying  it  around  with  him, 
when  a  young  Methodist  circuit-rider,  in  the 
breast-pocket  of  his  coat, — doubtless  to  keep  it 
safe  from  the  eyes  of  his  presiding  elder.  Any- 
how the  policeman  put  me  on  the  right  'bus. 
The  rest  was  simple :  I  needed  nowr  only  to 
(394) 


Cheyne  Row — Hotv  to  Pronounce  It.     395 

ask  to  be  set  down  at  the  nearest  point  to  Chine 
Row.  But  the  guard  was  puzzled  till  I  said  I 
was  seeking  Carlyle's  house,  then  he  said:  "Oh, 
Chi-ne  Row !"  He  let  me  off  at  the  right  place, 
and  I  was  soon  at  my  goal.  The  matron  gave 
me  full  freedom  of  house  and  garden,  for  I 
seemed  to  be  the  only  visitor  that  rainy  August 
afternoon,  and  I  could  inspect  at  my  leisure  the 
interesting  relics  and  mementos  of  the  Carlyles, 
and  read  most  interesting  authentic  documents, 
such  as  Disraeli's  autograph  letter  offering  Car- 
lyle  the  Grand  Cross  of  the  Bath,  and  the  lat- 
ter's  dignified  but  grateful  answer  declining  it. 
The  room  of  chief  interest  to  me  was,  of  course, 
the  sound-proof  study  at  the  top  of  the  house, 
where  Carlyle  could  be  at  peace  from  the  noise 
of  London,  and  whence  he  would  descend  when 
he  had  read  himself  full,  seat  himself  on  the 
floor  in  the  sitting-room  with  his  back  against 
the  chimney-jamb,  light  his  pipe,  and  pour  out, 
as  it  were  molten  lava  from  a  volcano  in  erup- 
tion, a  flood  of  ideas  upon  Mrs.  Carlyle.  It  was 
a  great  afternoon — but  my  story  was  about  the 
street-name,  and  I  had  still  other  experiences 
with  that. 

Cheyne  Row  opens  into  Cheyne  Walk,  and 
happily  just  as  I  entered  the  latter  street  a  post- 
man passed,  whom  I  asked  about  the  house 


396  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

where  George  Eliot  died.  He  pointed  it  out 
(No.  4),  and  went  on  to  tell  me  of  other  historic 
houses  that  I  wanted  to  see,  the  sometime  abode 
of  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  (No.  16)  and  the 
house  where  Turner  died  (No.  119).  Indeed, 
this  postman's  brain  was  a  veritable  storehouse 
of  information  about  Chelsean  antiquities  and 
historic  associations,  and  he  was  as  ready  to  tell 
it  all  as  the  Ancient  Mariner.  He  was  pleased 
that  I  had  just  come  from  Carlyle's  house,  but 
most  kindly  corrected  my  pronunciation  of  the 
street-name.  "We  call  it  Chay-ne  Row,  sir."  "You 
would  be  interested,  sir,"  he  added,  "to  see  Scots 
come  there  sometimes  and  sit  on  the  stoop  and 
shed  tears  about  Carlyle."  I  should  indeed  have 
been  interested  to  see  that,  and  I  wondered  what 
Carlyle's  ghost  thought  about  it.  But  there  were 
other  places  to  see ;  so  inventing  some  polite 
excuse  I  moved  on,  and  soon  met  with  another 
delightful  bit  of  London  courtesy.  A  man  who 
seemed  to  be  a  common  laborer  had  pointed  out 
across  the  street  the  locality  of  Turner's  house, 
but  I  could  not  find  either  the  number  or  the 
memorial  tablet.  Observing  my  puzzled  move- 
ments, he  crossed  the  wide  muddy  street  and 
pointed  out  the  tablet  hidden  under  the  over- 
hanging ivy. 

But   I   was   not  yet  through   with   the  name 


Cheyne  Row — How  to  Pronounce  It.     397 

Cheyne  Row.  At  the  dinner  table  I  was  telling 
rny  experience  with  the  policeman,  the  'bus  man, 
and  the  postman,  and  asked:  "How  do  you  call 
it,  Mr.  Hamilton?"  He  was  a  retired  Indian 
civil-service  official,  whom  we  all  found  most 
agreeable  and  well  informed.  "Why,  I  should 
say  Chdne  Row,"  he  answered.  The  maid,  who 
was  waiting  at  the  table,  was  evidently  disturbed 
and  uneasy,  which  was  all  explained  when  she 
knocked  at  my  door  after  dinner,  to  say:  "Mr. 
Hamilton  doesn't  know,  sir;  he's  just  back  from 
India;  we  call  it  Cheene  Row." 

Mr.  Hamilton's  pronunciation  is  the  one  given 
of  the  name  (though  not  of  this  particular 
street)  in  the  Century  Dictionary,  and  the  post- 
man's is  that  given  by  Carlyle, — "pronounced 
Chainie  Row,"  he  writes  to  Mrs.  Carlyle  (see 
Froude's  "Life,"  ii.  p.  249)  ; — but  certainly  Lon- 
don is  not  agreed  on  the  way  to  call  it. 


XX. 

THE  PASTOR  FOR  ME. 

ONE  Sunday  in  the  summer  of  1893  I  attend- 
ed preaching  with  my  host  at  a  little  "meeting- 
house" in .  Dr. ,  a  superannuated 

Methodist  preacher,  was  in  the  pulpit.  My  rec- 
ollection is  that  the  sermon  was  good,  but  I  espe- 
cially remember  the  reading  of  the  Scripture  les- 
son, the  one  hundred  and  fourth  Psalm,  which 
had  never  seemed  to  me  so  beautiful  as  then.  I 
could  think  of  only  one  other  Methodist  preacher 
who  could  have  read  the  lesson  so  well.  The 
whole  service  was  edifying.  When  we  were  at 
home  again,  I  asked  my  host  why  such  a  preacher 
had  no  regular  charge.  The  reply  was  that  he 
was  probably  not  equal  any  longer  to  the  man- 
agement of  all  the  interests  of  an  appointment, 
the  collection  of  money,  the  direction  of  all  the 
varied  interests  of  a  charge.  But  I  thought  then, 
and  I  have  thought  ever  since,  that  he  was  proba- 
bly just  about  ripe  and  mellow  enough,  had  had 
just  about  experience  enough  of  life  to  perform 
the  most  essential  part  of  a  pastor's  duty,  the 
caring  for  the  souls  of  his  people.  He  was  old 
(398) 


The  Pastor  for  Me.  399 

enough  to  know  by  experience  the  vanity  of  most 
things,  and  there  was  in  his  voice  a  trace  of  the 
joys  and  sorrows  and  disappointed  hopes  of  the 
past,  of  the  consciousness  that  he  belonged  now 
to  the  other  world  as  much  as  to  this,  of  a  con- 
stant making  ready  for  the  departure,  of  the 
sweetness  and  sadness  of  "going  home."  And 
that  would  make  him  truly  a  "shepherd  of  the 
people."  What  is  the  management  of  all  the 
varied  church  machinery,  the  choir,  the  finances, 
what  is  even  the  lengthening  of  the  church  roll, 
compared  with  this? 

I  would  choose  for  my  pastor,  then,  rather  an 
old  man  than  a  young  one ;  indeed,  I  have  now 
fixed  the  ideal  age  at  not  less  than  sixty.  I  some- 
what prefer  that  he  should  be  of  a  grave  and 
dignified  air,  and  at  sixty  he  may  wear  this  with- 
out seeming  consciously  to  have  assumed  it.  I 
still  like  to  feel  a  reverence  for  my  pastor,  and 
I  have  always  found  it  easy  to  reverence  gray- 
haired  dignity.  The  unselfishness  that  is  apt  to 
go  with  gray-haired  wisdom  I  should  wish  to 
see  combined  with  liberality  of  thought,  with 
sympathy  for  honest  thinking,  even  for  honest 
doubt.  I  should  want  my  pastor  to  have  had  wide 
experience  of  men  and  of  things  ;  to  have  had  sor- 
row as  well  as  joy ;  to  have  become  enriched  and 
ripened  and  mellowed  and  sweetened  by  time  and 


4OO  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

experience  of  God's  dealing  with  men ;  to  6e  be- 
yond the  age  when  offices  (bishoprics  and  such) 
could  appeal  to  his  ambition ;  to  be  old  enough  to 
have  religion,  and  to  know  that  religion  is  not 
statistics,  so  that  he  would  hesitate  even  to  count 
up  the  conversions  he  had  been  instrumental  in 
making.  ''Pure  religion  and  undefiled  before 
God  and  the  Father  is  this,  To  visit  the  father- 
less and  the  widows  in  their  affliction,  and  to  keep 
himself  unspotted  from  the  world." 

"My  dear  sir,  such  sermons  feed  me !"  Dr.  Gar- 
land used  to  say — but  not  often — after  he  had 
heard  a  good  gospel  sermon  spoken  with  power, 
simplicity,  and  absence  of  thought  of  self.  But 
I  never  heard  him  say  that  of  a  very  young  man's 
sermon.  Since  writing  that  last  sentence,  some 
months  ago,  I  have  tried  to  recall  the  sermons 
that  made  an  abiding  impression  on  me.  I  re- 
member that  I  was  pleased  at  the  time  with  this 
or  that  young  man's  sermon,,  but  nothing  has 
stuck  in  my  mind.  It  is  the  sermons  of  older 
men  that  wrote  themselves  on  the  tablets  of  my 
heart,  and  this.  I  am  sure,  because  they  were 
parts  of  the  authentic  experience  of  a  human  soul. 
They  grew  up  in  another  soul,  were  transplanted 
into  my  soul,  and  lived.  The  thoughts  they  em- 
bodied were  not  cuttings  or  blossoms  like  the 
vases  or  flowerpots  which  for  a  Sunday  adorn 


The  Pastor  for  Me.  401 

the  chancel,  but  they  were  roots  torn  from  the 
heart  of  a  man.  Good  sermons  are  growths,  as 
other  good  things  are  apt  to  be,  and  if  I  am  wise 
I  shall  not  expect  too  many  of  them  from  my 
pastor  in  a  year ;  for  most  men  cannot  grow  many 
good  sermons  in  a  single  year. 

But  it  is  fair  to  insist  that,  though  my  pastor 
may  not  preach  a  good  sermon  every  Sunday,  he 
shall  be  able  to  read  well  the  Scripture  lessons 
every  Sunday.  What  I  want  is  not  elocution  in 
the  pulpit ;  all  I  ask  is  that  he  feel  profoundly  the 
great  passages  of  Scripture,  and  by  his  voice  in- 
terpret to  me  what  he  sees  and  feels  therein. 
Ought  not  the  man  who  has  not  only  borne  his 
own  burdens  and  sorrows,  but  has  shared  those 
of  whole  congregations  for  many  years,  to  be 
able  to  interpret  God's  promises  and  consolations 
in  that  way? 

In  the  Sunday  morning  responsive  reading  not 
long  ago  two  voices  near  by  drew  my  attention. 
The  one  was  the  voice  of  a  young,  strong,  healthy 
man,  a  good  singer,  and  it  had  a  clear,  metallic 
ring  about  it,  indicating  perhaps  a  degree  of  sat- 
isfaction with  the  reading.  This  voice  did  not 
dwell  on  any  particular  words  in  a  way  that  would 
hint  at  a  soul-experience.  But  the  man  who  held 
the  book  with  me  surprised  me.  I  would  not 
have  guessed  from  his  looks  that  he  would  read 
26 


4O2  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

well.  It  was  the  thirty-fourth  Psalm,  and  when 
the  word  "troubles"  was  reached  his  voice  un- 
consciously betrayed  that  he  had  suffered  and 
been  made  sweet  by  sorrow.  "O  taste  and  see 
that  the  Lord  is  good,"  the  young  man  read  with 
a  sort  of  bugle-call  utterance ;  but  the  older  man's 
tones  unconsciously  revealed  that  when  sorrow 
had  compassed  him  about,  the  Lord  had  deliv- 
ered him  out  of  all  his  troubles. 

But  it  is  not  my  pastor's  preaching  or  reading 
that  I  am  chiefly  concerned  about.  I  want  him, 
above  all  things,  to  have  religion,  and  to  live  it. 
"Have  I  not  made  before  you  for  fifteen  years 
that  loudest  of  all  professions,  a  godly  life?"  said 
Dr.  Garland,  just  once,  in  a  Samuel-like  strain 
to  the  students ;  and  the  effect  \vas  overwhelming, 
because  no  one  could  gainsay  it.  What  the  world 
wants,  above  all  things,  is  to  see  religion  lived. 
The  preacher  without  religion  may  fill  the  pews 
and  even  the  aisles  for  a  while ;  but  they  will  not 
stay  filled,  certainly  not  with  the  same  people. 
Religion,  according  to  my  theory,  must  be  main- 
ly a  gradual  experience  and  a  growth,  and  this 
again  is  a  reason  why  I  want  my  pastor  to  be 
sixty  or  more  years  of  age. 

Dr.  Garland,  though  a  layman,  seemed  to  have 
as  many  of  the  qualities  I  would  have  in  my  pas- 
tor as  any  man  I  have  ever  known  well.  He  was 


The  Pastor  for  Me.  403 

unselfish ;  he  did  not  seek  honors,  though  they 
sought  him ;  he  seemed  not  to  be  moved  by  men's 
applause,  though  their  sympathy  was  precious  to 
him.  Rectitude  was  a  habit  with  him;  his  faith 
in  God  was  simple  as  a  child's,  and  his  daily 
conduct  was  directed  by  this  sincere  and  simple 
faith. 

I  met  a  few  years  ago,  just  for  a  day,  a  man 
who  interested  me  much.  He  was  an  Episcopal 
clergyman,  growing  old,  frail  of  body,  and  with  a 
spiritual  face.  I  inferred  from  casual  remarks — 
for  he  said  nothing  directly  about  his  past  life — 
that  he  had  held  important  pastorates ;  but  now 
he  had  no  church,  was  simply  acting  as  chaplain 
at  a  boys'  school,  and  teaching  odd  classes  in  Lat- 
in and  English.  It  was  evident  that  he  was  being 
"laid  on  the  shelf."  But  the  remarkable  thing 
was  that,  though  his  heart  seemed  to  open  to  me, 
as  mine  did  to  him,  and  we  became  friends  in 
an  evening,  he  never  once  complained.  It  is  per- 
haps the  hardest  thing  in  the  world  to  be  "laid 
on  the  shelf"  before  one's  time,  and  yet  not  to 
murmur,  not  to  be  soured,  but  sweetened  by  it. 
How  the  gentle  Jesus  must  love  to  dwell  in  the 
heart  of  a  man  like  that !  What  a  pastor  was 
there,  what  a  shepherd  for  weary,  hungry  souls, 
if  men  could  only  have  seen  it ! 


XXI. 

THE  PLAIN  PROSE  OF  LIFE  IN  THE 
SMOKY   MOUNTAINS. 

IF  one  wishes  to  know  how  the  people  of  these 
mountains  live,  he  must  take  a  light  knapsack 
and  set  out  on  foot  among  them,  prepared  to 
take  things  as  they  come — in  the  most  literal 
sense  to  "rough  it."  "Cade's  Cove,"  which 
stretches  along  by  the  side  of  the  Great  Smoky 
Mountains  from  the  foot  of  "the  Bald"  where 
"Pa'son"  Kelsey  used  to  pray,  almost  to  "Thun- 
der Head/'  around  which  were  enacted  the 
scenes  of  "In  the  Clouds,"  is  said  to  contain  the 
most  original  people — those  who  have  been  least 
influenced  by  the  civilization  beyond  the  moun- 
tains. And  my  first  tramp  to  the  Great  Smokies, 
in  July,  1885,  was  devoted  to  just  this  section. 

Readers  of  "The  Harnt  that  Walks  Chilhow- 
ee"  are  surprised  to  find  that  the  long  moun- 
tain ridge  of  Chilhowee  is  covered  with  a  dense 
growth  of  timber  from  one  end  to  the  other,  and 
totally  uninhabited,  so  that  Peter  Giles'  farm  is 
as  pure  a  myth  as  is  the  stream  near  his  house 
which  "outstripped  the  wind"  on  its  way  to  the 
(404) 


Life  in  the  Smoky  Mountains.          405 

valley,  or  the  possibility  of  red  apples  on  the 
summit  in  June.  The  mountaineers  in  all  this 
region  dwell  in  the  valleys  or  "coves,"  only 
herders  staying  from  spring  until  fall,  with  their 
cattle  on  the  heights.  Now  and  then  a  herder 
takes  his  family  to  live  with  him  on  the  Smokies, 
and,  being  too  poor  to  come  down,  spends  the 
winter  there.  But  usually  the  herder  is  unen- 
cumbered by  family,  and  lives  during  the  herd- 
ing season  in  the  utmost  pastoral  simplicity.  A 
rude  log  cabin,  with  chimney  of  sticks  and  mud, 
no  window,  and  only  one  door — which  but  for 
the  cold  would  never  be  shut,  as  it  is  never 
locked — suffices  to  house  him  at  night  and  in 
storms.  He  literally  keeps  open  house,  and  the 
traveler  or  tramp  soon  learns  that  he  may  with 
perfect  impunity  take  possession  of  the  castle  in 
the  absence  of  the  lord,  and  cook,  eat,  sleep  there 
without  fear  of  being  considered  an  intruder.  If 
the  tramp  has  not  brought  provisions  of  his  own, 
the  herder  generously  invites  him  to  share  his 
board,  as  he  does  his  bed  (the  floor),  and  can 
rarely  be  induced  to  take  any  pay.  Especially  is 
this  the  case  in  the  region  of  Cade's  Cove,  where 
the  tradition  prevails  that  it  is  mean  to  charge 
for  hospitality.  I  well  remember  the  self-con- 
demnatory look  of  a  big,  barefoot  mountaineer, 
who,  having  been  persuaded  to  take  in  payment 


406  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

for  lodging  (on  the  floor,  it  is  true),  three  meals, 
and  an  extra  pone  of  bread  for  lunch,  a  quarter 
of  a  dollar,  called  after  us,  as  if  compounding 
with  his  conscience :  "Boys,  ef  you-uns  cross  the 
mountain  'bout  dinner-time,  you  better  come  by 
an'  git  yer  dinner ;  you-uns  hain't  got  the  wuth 
o'  yer  quarter  yit." 

Cross  a  mountain  from  Cade's  Cove  and  you 
are  in  Tuckaleechee,  the  valley  immortalized  by 
"Mis'  Purvine"  and  her  steer  "Buck,"  well  re- 
membered by  all  as  two  of  the  chief  characters 
of  "In  the  Clouds."  Follow  that  same  "Little 
River"  in  which  Mink  Lorey  was  drowned  at 
last,  deep  into  the  spurs  of  the  Smoky  Moun- 
tains, and  there,  several  miles  from  anywhere, 
you  will  find  the  cabin  of  "Black"  Bill  Walker. 
Rather  we  should  call  it  a  "settlement,"  for  there 
are  four  cabins  and  a  little  corn-mill.  We  were 
guided  to  "Black"  Bill's  by  "Devil"  Sam  Walker, 
a  distant  relative  of  his ;  and  it  may  be  mentioned 
that  such  complimentary  nicknames  are  not  un- 
common in  that  region,  especially  among  the 
numerous  Walker  family,  whose  great  ancestor 
"had  fit  with  Gin'ral  Jackson  at  New  Orleans," 
and  was  known  as  "  'Sassy'  Jack  Walker,  the  In- 
dian fighter."  Only  a  half-grown  boy  was  vis- 
ible as  we  crossed  the  foot-log  which  spanned 
the  noisv  mountain  stream  before  the  house  and 


Life  in  the  Smoky  Mountains.          407 

approached  the  cabin.  "H'y're,  Mose,  are  you 
stout?"  saluted  "Devil"  Sam.  "Yes,  I'm  stout," 
said  Mose;  "are  you  stout?"  "Whar's  'Black' 
Bill?"  "He's  huntin'  bees."  Sam  went  to  the 
door  of  the  house  and  spoke  to  a  pale,  thin, 
sad-visaged  woman,  who  seemed  never  to  have 
smiled,  and  was  too  timid  to  give  us  a  greeting. 

Soon  "Black"  Bill  came,  the  most  striking- 
looking  man  in  the  mountains.  He  is  a  white 
man  of  pure  blood,  but  hair  and  beard  are  jet 
black,  his  complexion  swarthy  of  course,  and 
hence  his  nickname.  He  stood  at  least  six  feet 
in  height,  weighed  over  two  hundred  pounds, 
and  had  that  free,  independent,  commanding  air 
that  might  have  made  him  in  troublous  times  a 
mountain  chief.  A  tall,  fleet-footed,  and  not  un- 
handsome young  mountaineer  had  met  us  not  far 
from  the  house.  There  was  a  trace  of  melan- 
choly in  his  face,  and  he  was  more  demon- 
strative than  mountaineers  usually  are  to  the 
little  child  that  presently  climbed  into  his  lap. 
Directly  a  young,  dark-haired  woman,  evidently 
"Black"  Bill's  daughter,  emerged  from  the  house 
with  a  pail  in  her  hand,  and  we  had  seen  the 
chief  figures  in  a  recent  domestic  tragedy.  The 
young  woman  had  recently  played  the  role  of 
Helen  of  old ;  her  Paris  had  been  killed  within 
a  few  weeks  at  a  log-rolling  in  another  county, 


408  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

and  she  and  her  Menelaus  were  both  again  under 
her  father's  roof.  In  a  day  or  two  they  went 
back  together  to  their  own  cabin.  Nor  was  that 
all.  The  boy  Mose  bore  the  relation  of  Meges 
to  the  sad-visaged  Theano  in  the  house,  his  own 
mother  occupying  a  cabin  a  hundred  yards  away. 
Thus  much  we  learned  afterwards  of  the  morals 
of  this  isolated  mountain  family. 

Amid  such  surroundings  the  boy  Mose  was 
not  likely  to  worry  much  over  his  birth,  but  fate 
seemed  to  have  been  harsh  toward  him  other- 
wise, for  he  was  too  weakly  ever  to  become  a 
huntsman,  and  too  far  from  civilization  to  learn 
to  read.  "I  wish  you'd  read  some,"  he  said,  as 
he  saw  a  book  in  my  hand.  I  read  to  him  "The 
Dancing  Party  at  Harrison's  Cove,"  and  his 
eager,  hungry  eyes  haunt  me  still.  But  his  only 
comment  was:  "I  wish  you  had  a  United  States 
history;  I'd  git  you  to  read  me  some  'bout  the 
war." 

As  we  followed,  the  next  day,  "Black"  Bill 
and  "Devil"  Sam  still  farther  into  the  wilderness, 
we  could  not  help  admiring  the  alert  sense  and 
acute  observation  of  these  famous  huntsmen. 
Not  a  medicinal  shrub  seemed  to  escape  their 
notice,  their  ears  caught  every  sound,  and  they 
were  on  the  alert  for  the  deadly  rattlesnake  with 
eyes,  ears,  and  nose ;  for,  they  say,  they  can  smell 


Life  in  the  Smoky  Mountains.          409 

a  rattlesnake  when  he  is  mad.  But .  for  their 
nicely  trained  senses  it  would  seem  that  bare- 
footed mountaineers  would  be  often  bitten  by 
rattlesnakes,  even  though  they  are  sluggish  rep- 
tiles. Surely,  these  swift,  sure-footed,  keen- 
eyed  mountaineers  were  wonderful  scouts  dur- 
ing the  war,  one  would  think.  But  no.  As 
we  lay  that  night  on  the  ground  in  the  still- 
ness of  the  primeval  forest,  under  cover  of  a 
rude  shelter  of  bark,  they  told  their  experience 
"endurin'  the  war."  They  had  sympathized 
with  the  Union  side,  they  had  fed  and  guided 
"Parson"  Brownlow  when  he  took  refuge  in 
the  mountains,  and  they  had  aided  deserters 
from  the  Confederate  army.  But  though  "Black" 
Bill  "didn't  vally  his  life  more'n  five  cents  in  the 
times  o'  the  wTar,"  so  much  so  that  he  had  once, 
Putnam-like,  crawled  into  a  bear's  den  and  shot 
the  bear,  he  had  hid  out  rather  than  fight  on 
either  side.  "I  thought  I  could  take  keer  o'  my- 
se'f,"  said  he ;  and  so  the  majority  of  the  men  in 
the  mountains  thought. 

Our  guide  on  this  trip,  "Devil"  Sam,  was 
something  of  a  character  and  apt  to  be  amusing 
when  he  was  not  posing.  For  instance,  when 
"Uncle  Bob  McCampbell,"  the  late  local  Her- 
cules, was  mentioned,  Sam  said,  "He  could  'a' 
fit  Samson  ef  he'd  'a'  jes'  give  up  the  jawbone 


4io  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

o'  the  ass."  And  he  didn't  mean  to  be  funny 
when,  apropos  of  a  woman's  statement  that  "the 
baby  was  bad  with  a  bealin'  on  its  neck,"  he  said, 
"Bealin's  never  does  come  jest  at  the  right  place. 
You  could  pick  a  better  place  jest  half  a'  inch 
f'om  wher  they  comes  ev'y  time."  But  it  was 
evident  when  he  visited  the  hotel  that  he  was  try- 
ing always  to  say  smart  things,  especially  in  the 
presence  of  a  New  Orleans  lady,  who  he  fan- 
cied was  going  to  write  a  book ;  and,  indeed,  he 
naively  remarked  to  her  one  day,  after  telling 
her  that  some  Cincinnati  ladies  had  painted  his 
picture  and  placed  it  on  exhibition  at  the  Cin- 
cinnati Exposition,  that  he  "would  like  ter  be  in- 
terjuced  to  New  Orleans/'  But,  of  course,  it 
was  only  when  he  was  off  his  guard  and  most 
serious  that  he  began  to  be  really  amusing. 
"Niggers  has  giv'  a  power  o'  interruption  sence 
the  war,"  said  he  as  we  trudged  along ;  "it  would 
be  better  ef  they  was  all  in  Africa.  But  I  tell 
you  I  don't  let  none  of  'em  sass  me ;  ef  they 
bothers  me  I  jes'  tips  with  a  rock  an'  knocks 
'em  down."  "Are  there  many  negroes  about 
here,  Mr.  Walker?"  "No,  thar's  only  one  in 
Tuckaleechee.  He  was  brung  f'om  way  down  at 
Atlanta,  an'  he's  stayed  hyer  an'  larned  to  go 
slow.  Our  boys  wouldn't  take  nuthin'  offen  a 
nigger.  They'd  kill  him  in  a  minit."  It  was  a 


Life  in  the  Smoky  Mountains.          411 

relief  to  know  that  practically  there  were  no  ne- 
groes for  the  boys  to  kill ;  but  Sam  was  doubtless 
correct  about  the  sentiment  of  the  cove.  And 
yet  these  men  had  mostly  sympathized  with  the 
Northern  side  in  the  war. 

In  the  mountain  air  one  soon  learns  how  it  was 
the  Homeric  heroes  could  eat  so  much  and  so 
often ;  but  even  an  atmosphere  that  is  in  itself  a 
tonic  cannot  brace  a  man  always  against  the  ever- 
lasting sameness  of  diet  and  ill-cooking  that  pre- 
vail ;  so  that  the  mountaineer  complains  much  of 
his  liver,  and  in  the  summer  fever  is  common. 
But  the  lot  of  the  women  is  hardest.  Born  in 
a  hut,  living  in  a  hut,  rarely  going  five  miles 
from  the  hut,  their  life  is  monotony  itself — an 
endless  round  of  cooking,  washing,  weaving, 
spinning,  as  well  as  field  work.  And  besides 
constant  toil  and  no  recreation,  they  have  the 
usual  poor  folks'  blessing — "children  an  heepe." 
I  stayed  one  night  at  a  house  where  twelve  chil- 
dren blessed  the  seventeen-year  union  of  the 
heads  of  the  house ;  and  heard  of  four  women  in 
the  adjoining  cove  the  sum  of  whose  bairns  was 
sixty-one !  No  wonder  they  become  prematurely 
aged,  as  Miss  Murfree  so  truly  described  them. 
Then  there  is  the  "dipping"  habit,  so  common 
that  one  rarely  sees  a  woman,  young  or  old, 
without  the  "dip-stick"  in  her  mouth,  to  say 


412  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

nothing  of  smoking  and  even  chewing  tobacco, 
which  are  not  uncommon.  There  may  be  such 
quick-witted,  sharp-tongued  women  in  the  moun- 
tains as  Mrs.  Ware  or  Mrs.  Purvine,  but  we 
found  them  generally  as  slow  of  speech  as  they 
are  barren  of  ideas. 

Times  are  better  than  they  used  to  be  with  the 
mountaineers,,  for  the  days  of  "moonshine  whis- 
ky" are  over,  and  the  men  are  temperate,  be- 
cause they  can't  get  anything  to  drink.  In  all 
my  tramps  during  two  summers  I  never  saw  a 
drunken  man.  "It  is  hard  to  get  four  miles  from 
a  schoolhouse  now,  even  in  the  mountains,"  as 
a  mountaineer  remarked;  and  the  four-mile  law 
is  in  force  all  through  that  section. 

In  religious  matters,  too,  there  is  progress. 
The  primitive  or  "foot-washing"  Baptists  still 
have  their  churches  in  the  mountain  coves,  where 
their  shepherds  feed  their  flocks  on  sound  and 
fury  and  nonsense;  but  the  missionary  Baptist 
and  the  circuit-rider  follow  steadily  in  the  wake 
of  the  schoolmaster,  and  the  sect  that  believes  in 
ignorance  is  already  doomed. 


XXII. 

HOMERIC   QUALITIES   IN   THE   GREAT 
SMOKY  MOUNTAINS. 

"WHO  art  thou  of  the  sons  of  men,  and 
whence?"  That  was  the  inevitable  and  natural 
question  asked  of  a  stranger  in  Homer.  It  is 
the  way  with  primitive  folk  everywhere,  doubt- 
less, and  the  men  of  the  Great  Smoky  Mountains 
are  no  exception.  If  you  meet  a  mountaineer 
in  the  big  road,  he  says:  "Good  mornin'.  What 
mought  your  name  be?"  One  day,  as  I  and 
my  fellow-tramps  were  trudging  along  the  road 
to  Thunderhead,  I  saw  a  mountaineer  coming, 
and  said:  "When  that  man  asks  my  name,  I  am 
going  to  answer,  'Smith' — nothing  more — and 
see  what  he  will  do."  It  was  the  wittiest  thing 
I  ever  did  or  said.  Sure  enough,  the  lank, 
barefoot  covite  greeted  me  and  asked :  "What 
mought  your  name  be?"  "Smith,"  I  answered, 
and  looked  as  if  I  had  told  all  there  was  to  be 
told.  The  man  looked  puzzled.  He  stopped  and 
stood  a  while,  marked  with  his  big  toe  in  the 
sand,  sat  down  by  the  roadside  and  thought  over 
it.  then  arose  and  walked  on.  I  had  evidently 

(413) 


414      Homeric  Qualities  in  the  Mountains. 

hurt  his  feelings;  but  he  couldn't  resent  it,  for 
with  a  cheerful  face  I  had  told  him  all  he  asked. 
That  is  the  way  when  you  meet  a  man  in  the 
big  road ;  but  when  you  call  at  the  mountaineer's 
house,  the  Homeric  parallel  is  still  more  striking. 
When  Telemachus  and  Mentor  arrived  at  sandy 
Pylos,  they  found  old  Nestor  and  his  son  and 
around  him  his  company,  making  a  feast;  and 
the  old  man  made  them  welcome.  After  they  had 
eaten,  he  said :  "Now  is  the  better  time  to  inquire 
of  the  strangers  who  they  are,  now  that  they  have 
had  their  delight  of  food.  Strangers,  who  are 
ye?"  So  it  was  with  Odysseus  at  the  palace  of 
Alcinous;  with  Telemachus  and  Pisistratus  at 
the  palace  of  Menelaus,  in  Sparta ;  with  Odys- 
seus at  the  hut  of  Eumseus,  the  swineherd;  and 
everywhere  else  in  Homer.  The  guest  was  never 
questioned  till  he  had  eaten.  That  was  Homeric 
etiquette.  Just  so  it  was  when  I  visited  "Black" 
Bill  Walker,  who  lived  in  a  cove  in  the  inner- 
most recesses  of  the  Smoky  Mountains — a  little 
valley  occupied  by  just  four  families  and  accessi- 
ble only  on  foot  or  horseback  or  with  a  wooden 
"slide."  "Devil"  Sam  Walker,  a  connection  of 
"Black"  Bill's,  accompanied  me;  and  supposing 
that  he  had  told  our  host  all  about  me,  I  said 
nothing  about  my  name  or  my  business.  We 
were  "hospitably  entreated,"  and  after  dinner 


Homeric  Qualities  in  the  Mountains.      415 

"Black"  Bill  took  us  trout-fishing.  On  the 
way  he  had  to  address  me  by  name,  and  said 
apologetically:  "You  know  you  hain't  told  me 
your  name  yit."  I  quickly  excused  my  breach 
of  etiquette,  and  thought  of  old  Homer's  way. 

I  found  other  Homeric  traditions  prevailing  in 
this  mountain  cove.  There  was  a  deserted  cabin, 
and  "Devil"  Sam  told  us  the  story.  "Black" 
Bill's  daughter  was  the  mistress  of  it,  but  this 
Helen  had  deserted  her  Menelaus  and  run  off 
with  a  backwoods  Paris.  The  latter  had  lost  his 
life  at  a  log-rolling  in  a  neighboring  county — so 
report  said,  but  "Devil"  Sam  intimated  that  Men- 
elaus probably  knew  better  how  this  Paris  came 
to  his  death — and  the  mountain  Helen  was  back 
under  her  father's  roof.  So  was  her  Menelaus. 
They  never  spoke  to  each  other ;  but  no  resent- 
ment was  apparent  in  his  manner,  and,  as 
"Devil"  Sam  predicted,  the  pair  were  soon  to- 
gether again  in  the  little  cabin,  just  as  Telema- 
chus,  in  the  fourth  book  of  the  "Odyssey,"  found 
Menelaus  and  Helen  in  the  palace  at  Sparta. 

Nor  yet  is  Homeric  parallel  exhausted  in 
"Black"  Bill's  little  domain.  Menelaus  had  a  .son 
— "strong  Megapenthes,  born  of  a  slave  wom- 
an ;  for  the  gods  no  longer  showed  seed  to 
Helen  from  the  day  that  she  bare  a  lovely  child, 
Hermione,  fair  as  golden  Aphrodite."  And  in 


4i 6  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

"Black"  Bill's  house  we  found  a  boy  of  fifteen, 
son  of  Bill's  "other  woman" — "Devil"  Sam  told 
us — who  lived  in  a  cabin  across  the  creek,  two 
hundred  yards  away.  The  situation  was  as  quiet- 
ly accepted  by  "Black"  Bill's  wife  as  in  the  fami- 
ly of  a  Homeric  hero  or  Hebrew  patriarch. 

It  was  part  of  the  religious  duty  of  the  Ho- 
meric man  to  show  hospitality  to  inoffensive  and 
helpless  strangers,  and  it  was  the  function  of 
Zeus  Xenios  to  see  that  the  wayfarer  was  "kindly 
entreated."  Natural  primitive  human  instinct 
insures  hospitality  for  the  stranger  among  the 
mountaineers.  We  found  it  so  on  many  occa- 
sions. For  example,  on  the  "Little  Bald"  there 
was  a  single  herder's  cabin.  The  herder  was  the 
poorest  man  I  ever  saw.  His  house  was  a  one- 
room  log  hut,  occupied  by  himself,  his  wife,  three 
little  children — the  baby  in  a  dugout  cradle — and 
a  mother-in-law.  The  wife  was  in  the  kitchen 
in  the  yard,  cooking  something  for  us  to  eat,  and 
the  herder  and  his  mother-in-law  sat  in  the  cabin 
and  heard  us  talk.  Two  of  the  three  chairs  were 
occupied  by  my  companion  and  myself,  the  moth- 
er-in-law sat  in  the  third,  and  the  herder  on  the 
floor.  Two  wretched  frames  covered  with  ragged 
bedclothes  were  the  only  other  furniture.  But 
what  listeners  they  were!  They  had  Homeric 
ears,  and  were  as  glad  to  hear  our  news  from 


Homeric  Qualities  in  the  Mountains.      417 

the  great  world  outside  their  mountains  as  Eu- 
mseus,  the  swineherd,  hung  upon  the  tale  of  his 
unrecognized  master,  Odysseus,  who  had  "wan- 
dered far  and  wide  and  seen  the  towns  and 
learnt  the  mind  of  many  men."  "Even  as  when 
a  man  gazes  on  a  singer  whom  the  gods  have 
taught  to  sing  words  of  yearning  joy  to  mortals, 
and  they  have  ceaseless  desire  to  hear  him  so 
long  as  he  will  sing,  even  so  he  charmed  me  sit- 
ting by  me  in  the  halls."  This  was  the  effect 
upon  Eumaeus.  We  had  not  the  gift  of  speech 
of  the  Homeric  hero;  but  nearly  all  that  was 
happening  in  the  world  was  absolutely  new  to  the 
herder  and  his  mother-in-law,  and  they  sat  and 
listened  and  chewed  tobacco  and  spat  through 
a  crack  in  the  floor.  We  did  not  need  to  in- 
vent any  marvelous  stories.  It  was  July  29, 
1885,  and  our  host  had  not  heard  who  had  been 
inaugurated  President  in  the  preceding  March. 
He  had  voted  in  November,  and  knew  that  Gro- 
ver  Cleveland  was  said  to  have  won,  but  "had 
hyeard  that  Elaine  was  a  fightin'  kind  o'  feller, 
an'  thought  he  mought  not  have  giv'  up."  The 
food  set  before  us  was  only  potatoes,  bacon, 
beans,  and  buttermilk — all  their  scanty  store — 
but  the  herder  kept  saying:  "Boys,  hit's  mighty 
rough ;  but  ef  you-uns  kin  stan'  it,  you're 
mighty  welcome."  And  when  we  offered  pay, 
27 


418  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

he  was  hurt.  "I've  hyeard  my  daddy  say,"  he 
remarked,  "he  never  tuk  nuthin'  in  his  life  for 
no  vittles,  an'  I'm  not  gwine  to  take  none  no- 
ther.  Hit's  mighty  rough,  but  you're  mighty 
welcome."  The  last  thing  we  heard  as  we  dis- 
appeared up  the  mountain  side  was:  "Boys,  ef 
you  don't  find  t'other  cabin,  come  back  here  an* 
spen'  the  night.  Hit's  mighty  rough,  but  ef  you- 
uns  kin  stan'  it,  you're  mighty  welcome."  It 
was  "mighty  rough,"  but  the  simple,  sincere  hos- 
pitality was  Homeric.  If  I  could  have  such  at- 
tention from  my  students  of  Homer,  I  might  talk 
myself  to  death. 

Two  days  later,  in  Tuckaleechee  Cove,  we 
called  at  Squire  Lawson's  for  dinner  on  Sunday. 
He  was  postmaster  and  chief  of  the  Republican 
faction.  Squire  Sparks,  with  whom  we  had 
spent  the  night  before,  was  chief  of  the  Demo- 
cratic faction.  His  fare  was  not  up  to  the  repu- 
tation of  his  house,  and  he  had  charged  us  fifty 
cents.  After  dinner  at  Squire  Lawson's,  which 
was  abundant  and  toothsome  and  wholesome,  I 
remarked:  "Squire,  if  you  are  willing,  I  believe 
we'll  stay  till  morning."  "I  wish  you  would  stay 
a  week,"  he  answered.  The  next  morning,  when 
I  offered  to  pay,  he  quickly  made  me  feel  guilty 
of  bad  manners  in  trying  to  pay  for  hospitality 
so  freely  bestowed.  At  the  Democratic  Squire 


Homeric  Qualities  in  the  Mountains.      419 

Sparks'  we  had  not  enjoyed  the  food,  and  had 
slept  in  a  feather  bed  in  a  long  room,  lined  its 
whole  length  with  other  beds  full  of  occupants. 
At  Squire  Lawson's,  besides  the  well-cooked 
food,  we  had  a  small  shed-room  all  to  ourselves. 
As  we  shook  hands  at  parting,  the  Squire  said: 
"I  wish  you  would  come  again  and  stay  three 
weeks."  "Men  should  lovingly  entreat  the  pres- 
ent guest  and  speed  the  parting,"  says  Homer. 
Squire  Lawson,  who  had  never  heard  of  us  till 
the  day  before,  had  acted  exactly  in  that  spirit. 
Is  it  strange  that  the  South  Carolinian  and  the 
Texan  who  trudged  away  felt  that  they  would 
vote  the  Republican  ticket  if  they  lived  in  Tuck- 
aleechee  Cove  ? 

In  August,  1892,  we  had  tramped  from  Thun- 
derhead  to  Clingman's  Dome,  and  had  come  at 
evening  to  the  last  ascent  of  the  peak  and  found 
another  party  who  hospitably  invited  us  to  share 
the  wild  turkey  they  were  eating  for  supper  and 
the  shack  they  had  constructed  for  the  night. 
Next  morning  their  guide,  Mat  Massey,  used 
his  large  pocketknife  to  turn  the  bacon  frying  for 
breakfast,  which  naturally  suggested  the  Homeric 
hero  using  the  same  machaira  or  dirk  to  carve 
bread  or  meat  in  camp  which  he  had  worn  in 
battle  for  use  against  his  enemy  when  it  came  to 
close  quarters.  And  when  Mat  Massey  told  us 


420  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

afterwards  that  the  blade  of  this  very  knife  was 
the  same  with  which  his  brother  had  killed  a 
man,  we  realized  that  the  parallel  with  the  Ho- 
meric dirk  was  closer  still,  though  we  had  a  grue- 
some feeling  about  the  bacon  turned  with  this 
murderous  blade. 

The  following  Sunday  morning,  as  we  were 
going  under  Mat  Massey's  guidance  from  the 
Smokies  to  the  Balsams,  we  came  upon  a  little 
farmhouse  in  a  clearing.  In  front  of  the  corn- 
crib  sat  a  youth  and  a  maiden,  evidently  court- 
ing. "Well,  human  nature  is  the  thing!" 

sententiously  observed  Mat.  He  was  as  innocent 
of  any  intention  to  utter  any  Homeric  sentiment 
as  his  knife  was  of  doing  the  work  of  a  Homeric 
dirk.  But  Homer  meant  the  same  thing  when, 
in  a  famous  simile,  he  said:  "Like  youth  with 
maiden,  as  youth  and  maiden  hold  dalliance  one 
with  another  from  oak  tree  or  from  rock." 

We  learned  that  one  of  Mat's  brothers  was 
somewhere  in  hiding  from  the  law,  having  killed 
a  man  who  had  stolen  his  wife's  affections.  In 
most  parts  of  the  civilized  world  there  would 
have  been  a  divorce,  but  in  the  Smoky  Mountains 
it  was  as  it  would  have  been  in  Homeric  Greece. 
A  day  or  two  later,  as  we  began  the  ascent  of 
the  Caney  Fork  Balsam,  the  guide  pointed  out 
to  us  the  spot  in  the  road  where  Grant  Massey 


Homeric  Qualities  in  the  Mountains.      421 

had  shot  on  the  first  Sunday  in  July  the  despoiler 
of  his  home;  and  a  little  later  we  saw  seated  be- 
fore her  cabin  the  wife — ''Helen  of  the  Balsams," 
we  might  call  her — whose  faithlessness  had 
brought  death  to  her  lover  and  outlawry  to  her 
husband.  A  glance  at  that  simple  mountain  wom- 
an's plain  face  could  detect  neither  a  sense  of  the 
enormity  of  her  crime  nor  any  incentive  for  con- 
duct like  that  of  the  Trojan  Paris. 

These  Smoky  Mountains  people  have  never 
heard  of  Homer,  but  they  have  Homeric — that 
is,  simple,  primitive — ways.  The  women  still 
wash  their  clothes  at  the  spring  or  in  the  brook, 
like  Nausicaa,  and  card  and  spin  and  weave — 
did  twenty  years  ago,  at  least — like  Penelope  and 
Helen,  and  just  as  the  Greek  peasant  women  do 
at  Argos  or  Olympia  to-day.  Even  in  the  dia- 
lect of  the  people  one  is  often  reminded  of  Ho- 
meric speech.  For  example,  the  mountaineers 
say  not  simply  "doctor"  or  "widow,"  but  "doctor- 
man,"  "widow-woman,"  "cow-brute,"  "apple- 
fruit,"  just 'as  the  Homeric  man  three  thousand 
years  ago  spoke  of  a  "healer-man,"  a  "widow- 
woman,"  a  "lady-mistress,"  a  "master-lord." 

The  Homeric  parallels  are  not  yet  exhausted, 
but  perhaps  the  reader's  patience  is.  When  I 
was  at  Vanderbilt,  in  my  golden  age,  I  used  in 
the  summer  vacations  to  be  overcome  with  a 


422  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

longing  to  get  back  to  nature,  to  go  to  the  Smoky 
Mountains,  and  in  the  exhilarating  atmosphere 
of  the  high  peaks  and  among  the  mountaineers 
become  hungry  and  healthy  and  happy  again. 
"The  hills  from  whence  cometh  my  help"  had  a 
new  meaning  for  me  at  such  times.  I  felt  the 
spirit  of  Homer  and  the  Old  Testament  best  un- 
der such  conditions.  Matthew  Arnold,  in  his 
poem,  "The  Future,"  asks : 

Who  can  see  the  green  earth  any  more 

As  she  was  by  the  sources  of  Time? 

Who  imagines  her  fields  as  they  lay 

In  the  sunshine,  unworn  by  the  plough  ? 

Who  thinks  as  they  thought, 

The  tribes  who  then  roamed  on  her  breast, 

Her  vigorous,  primitive  sons? 

My  heart  always  answers:  "The  Great  Smoky 
Mountains  is  the  place,  and  the  mountaineers 
are  earth's  vigorous,  primitive  sons."  "I  am  a 
brother  to  dragons  and  a  companion  to  owls," 
groaned  Job  in  his  misery.  Tom  Husky  felt 
well  and  happy  when  he  said :  "There  ain't  no 
danger  in  a  painter  or  a  bear  less'n  they've  got 
young.  I  was  raised  among  'em,  an'  I  know." 
And  "Devil"  Sam,  who  could  smell  a  live  rattle- 
snake if  it  was  mad,  indicated  a  still  closer  sym- 
pathy with  animals  in  his  remark :  ''Rattlesnakes 
ain't  half  as  bad  as  thev're  recomminded  to  be." 


Homeric  Qualities  in  the  Mountains.      423 

At  their  best  and  at  their  worst  these  people  are 
close  to  nature. 

But  all  that  happened  twenty  years  ago,  and 
I  am  too  far  from  the  Smokies  or  any  other 
mountains  to  get  there  easily  now ;  and  perhaps 
I  have  unconsciously  idealized  even  the  Smoky 
Mountains  and  see  it  all  in  a  golden  haze,  as  I 
see  Vanderbilt  and  Nashville,  with  the  winding 
river  and  the  rolling  hills. 


XXIII. 
FROM  ROAN  TO  MITCHELL. 

ROAX  is  an  easy  climb  to  "one  well  girt,"  prce- 
cinctus,  as  Horace  puts  it,  and  in  good  time  the 
greater  part  of  the  ten  miles  lay  behind  us,  and 
the  character  of  the  timber  indicated  that  the 
summit  of  the  ridge  was  near.  But  just  then  a 
cloud  swept  down  upon  us,  "and  the  floods  came 
and  the  winds  blew,"  and  the  darkness  was  so 
great  that  one  could  not  see  thirty  steps  ahead. 
But  at  last  the  great  white  hotel  "Cloudland" 
loomed  up  only  fifty  yards  away.  The  mercury 
stood  at  fifty-four  degrees  at  4:30  P.M.,  and  the 
big  fire  in  the  broad  fireplace  was  comfortable 
even  to  those  who  were  not  as  wet  as  we. 

Here  was  a  bright  prospect  for  a  tramp.  It 
looked  as  if  it  might  be  raining  all  over  the 
world,  and  there  seemed  no  hope  of  its  ending. 
The  proprietor  and  the  guests  told  us  of  the 
storm  of  the  night  before,  "the  worst  ever  known 
on  the  mountain,"  the  velocity  of  the  wind  being 
not  far  from  one  hundred  miles  an  hour.  We 
should  have  to  turn  back  on  the  morrow;  that 
seemed  certain. 
(424) 


From  Roan  to  Mitchell.  425 

Those  readers  who  have  been  at  "Cloudland" 
will  believe  the  statement  that,  though  we  warmed 
our  feet  before  withdrawing  to  our  room,  it  was 
at  least  half  an  hour  before  we  felt  comfortable 
in  bed.  With  such  prospects  at  10  P.M.,  who 
could  have  been  prepared  for  the  dawn  that  fol- 
lowed? Postera  lux  oritur  multo  gratissima. 
"Just  look  out  there!"  I  heard  some  one  say  at 
4:30,  and  springing  to  the  window  saw  a  vast 
ocean  of  cloud  below,  a  clear  sky  above,  and  the 
whole  east  glowing  with  the  promise  of  a  gor- 
geous sunrise.  The  vast  seas  and  lakes  of  clouds, 
with  dark  peaks  projecting  above  like  islands,  the 
wonderful  play  of  colors — purple,  violet,  crimson, 
gold — and  the  awful  silence  of  the  great  moun- 
tain, made  a  scene  never  to  be  forgotten.  One 
moment  more  and  the  chariot  of  the  sun-god 
would  appear,  and  just  then  some  one  said  rever- 
entially :  "It  looks  like  the  very  gates  of  Heaven  !" 
At  such  a  moment  one  almost  feels  sympathy 
with  those  five  and  twenty  men  mentioned  by  the 
prophet,  who,  with  their  backs  toward  the  temple 
of  the  Lord,  "worshiped  the  sun  toward  the 
east."  Even  on  Roan  there  could  hardly  be  more 
than  one  such  sunrise  in  a  summer. 

After  climbing  many  mountains,  after  a  night 
passed  on  the  august  summit  of  Mitchell  itself, 
I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  Roan  offers 


426  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

the  finest  views  to  be  had  in  all  our  mountain 
section.  No  other  mountain  presents  such  an 
extensive  "bald"  surface;  nowhere  else  can  one 
take  such  extensive  walks  and  rides.  But  the 
weather  is  treacherous  on  Roan.  In  the  bright- 
est sunshine  go  prepared  for  rain.  We  started 
in  company  with  my  father  and  mother  to  "the 
Bluff,"  one  mile  distant,  where  the  old  people 
were  to  say  good-by  and  turn  back;  but  before 
the  half-mile  point  was  reached  a  heavy  fog  was 
upon  us;  and  then  the  parting,  which  had  been 
postponed  as  long  as  possible — farewells  become 
more  painful  as  the  years  pass  by — took  place. 

The  little  town  of  Bakersville,  ten  miles  distant, 
was  to  furnish  us  dinner.  We  found  it  just  re- 
covering from  the  excitement  of  a  campaign  riot. 
The  Democrats,  who  are  in  a  majority  in  the 
town,  had  erected  a  Cleveland  banner,  and  the 
Rocky  Creek  Cove  Republicans  came  down,  sixty 
strong,  and  shot  the  flag  to  pieces.  In  the  night 
some  one  took  the  banner  down,  and  excitement 
ran  high.  One  man,  so  report  said,  was  shot  in 
the  ear,  and  a  number  got  bullet  holes  in  their 
clothes.  But  after  much  speech-making,  it  was 
agreed  that  neither  side  should  erect  a  flag  in 
town,  and  the  mountaineers  went  home.  As  we 
cleared  the  skirts  of  the  town  some  boys  on  a 
hillside  shouted  "Hurrah  for  Harrison!"  "Hur- 


From  Roan  to  Mitchell.  427 

rah  for  Cleveland !"  was  the  reply ;  and  then  those 
boys  swore,  reviling  us  in  worse  terms  than  those 
sent  after  the  prophet  of  old.  And  it  was  thirty 
miles  to  the  place  where  the  bears  live. 

It  was  still  twenty-four  miles  to  the  foot  of 
Mitchell,  but  with  the  help  of  a  mule  and  buggy 
for  half  the  distance  we  were  there  at  noon  the 
next  day  ready,  for  the  climb.  We  had  already 
passed  one  dead  rattlesnake  hanging  on  a  bush, 
and  a  mountaineer  told  us  he  had  just  shot  one 
in  the  path  above.  The  river,  south  prong  of  the 
Toe,  was  alive  with  fishermen,  among  them  three 
preachers  from  St.  Louis,  who  had  been  camping 
for  several  weeks  in  this  region  and  had  won  the 
good  will  of  the  natives — to  such  a 'degree,  in- 
deed, that  one  old  woman  sent  them  the  only 
knives  and  forks  she  had.  "There's  a  power  o' 
people  comin'  in  here  ev'y  summer,"  said  old 
Burt  Chrisson,  the  hunter;  "furriners  f'om  ev'y- 
wher'.  They  comes  f'om  as  fur  as  Richmond, 
Virginia." 

The  prospect  for  a  successful  ascent  was  fine, 
for  there  was  not  a  cloud  in  the  heavens,  and 
Italy  herself  might  have  envied  the  deep  blue  of 
the  sky.  "Hit'll  frost  on  the  peak  to-night,  ef 
the  wind  don't  blow  it  off,"  remarked  a  hunter. 
The  east  side  of  Mitchell  is  said  to  offer  the 
easiest  and  shortest  ascent,  but  even  here  it  is 


428  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

between  three  and  four  miles  to  the  top  and  a 
hard  climb  from  the  start.  One  mile  from  the 
summit  all  trace  of  the  path  disappeared,  except 
to  the  practiced  eyes  of  our  guide,  and  even  he 
said  that  in  fifty  trips  to  the  top  he  thought  he 
had  never  been  able  to  go  twice  in  exactly  the 
same  track  over  this  part  of  the  mountain.  Voices 
were  now  heard  in  a  dense  thicket  away  to  the 
left,  and  we  soon  found  that  it  was  the  three 
preachers,  who  had  attempted  to  ascend  the 
mountain  without  a  guide  and  had  strayed  from 
the  trail.  Well  for  them  that  there  were  no  fogs 
on  Mitchell  that  day;  otherwise  there  might  eas- 
ily have  been  more  graves  on  the  Peak.  Direct- 
ing them  to  the  trail,  we  hurried  on,  for  the  sun 
was  getting  low.  Blackberries  were  abundant, 
sweeter  than  any  ever  tasted  in  the  valley-coun- 
try, and  there  were  no  thorns  on  the  bushes;  or 
rather  the  thorns  were  only  in  embryo ;  they  nev- 
er mature  on  these  loftiest  summits.  Huckleber- 
ries grow  here  on  bushes  six  to  eight  feet  in 
height,  and  wild  gooseberries,  the  most  delicious 
we  ever  tasted,  also  on  bushes  quite  as  large. 
As  we  toiled  up  through  grass,  and  weeds  waist 
high,  the  guide  said:  "Here's  a  snake!"  We  ap- 
proached cautiously,  stepping  "delicately,"  ex- 
pecting to  see  a  huge  rattler,  but  it  was  only  a 
big  toad.  Pressing  on.  now  clambering  over  hid- 


From  Roan  to  Mitchell.  429 

den  rocks,  now  climbing  under  fallen  balsam 
trees,  the  sun  hidden  entirely  from  us,  we  at  last 
reached  the  bluff  where  people  camp,  and  in  one 
minute  more  stood  beside  Mitchell's  grave.  It 
is  worth  going  a  long  distance  to  feel  the  sensa- 
tion one  experiences  when  first  one  stands  on  the 
highest  point  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  The 
balsam  trees  have  been  cut  away,  so  that  the  view 
in  every  direction  is  unobstructed.  Close  at 
hand  are  several  other  peaks  of  the  Black  that 
seem  to  be  as  high  as  Mitchell,  and  in  truth  they 
all  measure  over  six  thousand  feet.  Twenty-five 
or  thirty  miles  distant,  in  a  bee-line  toward  the 
north,  is  Roan,  with  "Cloudland"  Hotel  visible 
to  the  naked  eye ;  to  the  east  "Grandfather"  and 
Table  Rock ;  to  the  southwest  Pisgah  and  the  Bal- 
sam range;  and  away  off  on  the  South  Carolina 
line  Tryon  and  Hogback.  It  is  said  that  one  can 
see  into  seven  states,  but  while  the  heavens  were 
clear  the  atmosphere  was  murky,  and  the  view 
not  as  ex-tensive  as  it  might  possibly  have  been. 

The  cairn  of  stones  that  used  to  cover  Pro- 
fessor Mitchell's  grave  had  been  replaced  by  a 
monument,  or  as  one  of  the  mountaineers  called 
it  an  "ornament."  It  is  of  the  usual  pyramidal 
shape,  about  twelve  feet  high,  and  seemed  to  be 
built  of  gray  stone.  Wondering  how  it  had  been 
carried  up  the  mountain,  and  supposing  that  it 


430  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

had  been  divided  into  sections,  I  tapped  it  with 
my  knuckles,  when  lo !  there  came  forth' the  sound 
of  hollow  metal.  To  think  of  "the  loneliest,  the 
most  august  tomb  on  earth,"  covered  by  an  imi- 
tation stone  monument !  The  frauds  of  the  val- 
ley-country have  invaded  our  highest  mountain 
peak  and  polluted  a  sacred  grave.  One  would 
think  that  the  winds  which  have  for  thirty  years 
been  howling  the  requiem  of  the  dead  scientist 
would  indignantly  sweep  this  unworthy  memo- 
rial from  his  resting  place.  Better  the  rude  cairn 
of  stones  which  stranger  hands  had  gradually 
heaped  up.  It  would  have  taken  more  time  and 
cost  a  little  more  money,  but  the  stone  for  a 
suitable  monument  could  have  been  quarried  close 
by,  and  nothing  less  was  worthy  of  the  dead  man's 
fame.  On  the  eastern  side  is  the  following  in- 
scription : 

Here  Lies,  in  the  Hope  of  a  Blessed 
Resurrection,  the  Body  of  the 

Rev.  Elisha  Mitchell,  D.D., 
Who,  After  Being  for  39  Years 

A  Professor 
In  the  University  of 

North  Carolina, 

Lost  His  Life  in  the  Scientific 

Exploration  of  This  Mountain, 

In  the  64th  Year  of  His  Age, 

June  27,  1857. 


From  Roan  to  Mitchell.  431 

The  sunset  was  not  especially  fine,  but  the 
shadow  of  Mitchell  projected  upon  the  eastern 
sky,  and  looking  in  the  gathering  darkness  like 
another  high  peak,  was  something  to  be  remem- 
bered. There  was  not  a  sound  to  break  the 
stillness  except  the  twittering  of  many  snowbirds 
and  the  strokes  of  an  ax  with  which  one  of  our 
party  was  cutting  firewood  for  the  night.  It 
seemed  already  certain  that  it  would  "frost  on 
the  peak"  that  night.  Just  then  a  voice  was  heard 
down  the  other  side  of  the  mountain ;  a  second 
later  it  was  discovered  to  be  a  woman's,  directly 
other  women's  voices  were  heard,  and  we  knew 
there  was  no  hope  for  sleep  that  night.  Alto- 
gether there  were  thirteen  in  this  second  party, 
eight  of  them  women,  and  the  two  companies  had 
to  share  the  shelter  of  "the  Bluff."  It  was  a 
lively  crowd.  The  wind  blew  the  balsam  smoke 
into  our  eyes  and  supper  was  dispatched  amid 
many  tears  and  much  laughter.  The  women 
talked,  by  wholes  and  by  sections,  all  night.  They 
had  not  got  fairly  settled  before  they  called  for 
a  show  of  hands  on  the  Presidential  question — 
it  was  August,  1888 — which  revealed  a  preference 
of  three  men  for  Harrison,  while  all  the  women, 
Northern  as  well  as  Southern,  and  the  rest  of 
the  men  were  for  Cleveland.  Later  in  the  night 
some  of  the  ladies  began  to  question  their  guide 


432  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

about  his  army  experiences.  He  had  been  under 
Stuart  "at  first."  "Well,  where  were  you  at 
last?"  "I  left  the  army."  "You  don't  mean  you 
deserted !"  they  exclaimed.  "Yes,  and  I'm  proud 
of  it."  "Oh,  no,  no,  no !"  came  in  a  chorus  from 
the  New  York  as  well  as  the  Kentucky  women. 
They  were  harder  upon  the  traitor  than  would 
have  been  our  quiet  guide,  who  had  stuck  to  his 
colors  till  the  bitter  end  came.  "Gid,"  the  devoted 
negro  servant  of  our  guide,  explained  to  me  in 
a  whisper. of  contempt  for  the  deserter:  "You  see 

we  was  f'om  Yancey,  and  he  was  f'om  ; 

that  make  the  defter 'nee."  For  the  deserter  it  is 
ever  as  Tacitus  said:  Transfugce  nomen  exse- 
crabile  veteribus  sociis,  novis  suspectum. 

The  moon  rose  in  cloudless  splendor,  and  there 
was  nothing  to  mar  the  beauty  of  a  perfect  night 
except  that  it  was  so  cold.  It  did  not  "frost  on 
the  peak,"  but  only  because  of  the  breeze.  On 
Linnville  River,  twenty  miles  away,  there  was 
frost  that  night  or  the  next. 


XXIV. 
CLINGMAN'S  DOME. 

ON  Oconaluftee  we  could  hear  of  no  one  who 
knew  the  whole  range  of  the  Smoky  Mountains 
from  the  Gap  to  Thunder  Head.  But  Tom  Husky 
was  said  to  be  the  best  woodsman  in  the  cove. 
"He  war  borned  and  raised  over  thar  in  the  Smo- 
kies," one  said,  "and  he'd  ruther  be  in  the  moun- 
tains than  anywhar  else.  He'll  pilot  you."  We 
found  Tom  in  the  humblest  of  log  cabins,  and  he 
readily  agreed  to  go  with  us,  though  he  had  nev- 
er been  over  more  than  two  miles  of  the  twenty- 
five  of  our  route. 

Tom  is  something  of  a  character.  Tall  and 
spare  to  absolute  leanness,  hard  living  in  the 
mountains  makes  him  seem,  at  forty-three,  to  be 
almost  sixty.  "His  grandfather,"  he  said,  "was 
a  German  and  his  mother  an  Irishman,"  and  he 
had  the  good  qualities  of  both  races,  though  he 
looked  like  neither.  He  has  a  wife  and  half  a 
dozen  children,  two  yokes  of  steers  and  a  few 
"cow-brutes,"  but  not  much  else,  for  he  has  sold 
out  with  a  view  to  moving  across  the  Smokies 
again.  He  has  "followed  herdin'  an'  trappin'  for 
28  (433) 


434  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

the  past  four  or  five  years,"  and  is,  by  common 
report  as  well  as  by  his  own  confession,  the  best 
hunter  in  that  part  of  the  mountains.  He  told 
us  in  a  modest  way  of  some  of  his  exploits.  I 
do  not  vouch  for  all  the  details,  but  we  found  him 
so  reliable  in  other  matters  that  I  admit  my  belief 
in  most  of  the  stories,  and  think  that  he  meant 
to  tell  the  strict  truth ;  but  the  imagination  is  in- 
clined, perhaps  unconsciously,  to  multiply  rattle- 
snakes especially. 

"There  ain't  no  game  here  to  what  there  used 
to  be,"  said  Husky;  "some  bear,  some  wolves, 
but  not  many;  some  deer,  but  they  is  sca'ce." 
In  the  past  five  years  Husky  has  killed  twenty- 
seven  bears  (seven  of  these  last  year),  seven 
wolves,  one  hundred  and  six  wild  turkeys,  and 
'coons  without  number.  During  his  first  year  on 
the  North  Carolina  side  of  the  Smokies  he  killed 
three  hundred  rattlesnakes.  Those  are  the  fig- 
ures, and  though  I  broke  out  laughing  when  I 
asked  him  to  repeat  the  number  of  rattlesnakes, 
he  assured  me  with  a  serious  air  that  he  was 
telling  the  literal  truth.  He  killed  on  two  differ- 
ent days  twenty-six  rattlesnakes  each,  having 
come  upon  a  den  of  them.  Husky  was  evidently 
of  the  opinion  of  "Devil"  Sam  Walker,  who  said, 
"Rattlesnakes  ain't  half  as  bad  as  they're  ricom- 
mended  to  be."  Tom  was  bitten  by  one  that  he 


Clingman's  Dome.  435 

was  pestering  when  he  was  "jest  a  chunk  of  a 
boy,"  and  did  nothing  but  apply  some  tar  to  draw 
out  the  poison.  When  he  was  only  ten  years  old 
he  shot  a  bear  that  "neated"  three  hundred  and 
seventy-five  pounds.  We  heard  a  man  telling  a 
tale  of  an  Indian  and  panther  that  killed  each 
other  somewhere  in  the  Smokies — evidently  the 
original  of  the  story  in  Craddock's  "Despot  of 
Broomsedge  Cove,"  or  else  set  going  by  some 
one  who  has  read  that  book — but  Tom  says  the 
story  is  impossible.  "There  ain't  no  danger," 
said  he,  "in  a  painter  or  a  bear,  less'n  they've  got 
young.  I  was  raised  among  'em,  an'  I  know." 

Fifteen  or  sixteen  years  ago  panthers  were 
plentiful,  but  there  came  then  a  snow  four  feet 
nine  inches  in  depth  that  killed  them  out,  as  well 
as  most  of  the  deer.  The  deer  were  found  dead 
"in  piles"  that  winter.  Husky  thinks  wolves  are 
a  comparatively  late  importation  into  the  Smokies, 
for  he  never  saw  or  heard  of  them  when  a  boy. 
There  is  no  danger  in  them,  though  they  are 
"mighty  sassy  about  their  meat  when  they  get 
it." 

Thus  far  it  had  been,  as  Husky  said,  "cooler'n 
common,  plumb  cool  for  the  season  o'  the  year." 
The  evening  before  we  had  observed  clouds  gath- 
ering about  the  tops  of  the  Smokies,  still  eight 
miles  off,  but  a  mountaineer  consoled  us  by  say- 


436  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

ing,  "Clouds  use  round  thar  eve'y  day."  Monday 
morning  broke  sensibly  warmer,  but  Husky  said, 
"I  guess  hit's  plumb  cool  on  the  Smokies";  so 
we  started  a  little  after  sunrise.  We  had  in  our 
haversacks  hard  beaten  biscuit,  deviled  ham,  cof- 
fee, sugar,  salt,  and  pepper,  and  Husky  persuaded 
the  woman  at  the  last  house  on  the  road  to  sell 
us  her  very  last  gallon  of  meal  and  some  fat 
bacon.  He  brought  a  coffee-pot  from  home  and 
borrowed  a  frying-pan  from  a  neighbor,  and  then 
we  had  all  the  implements  we  wanted  or  needed. 

Everybody  said  there  were  plenty  of  mountain 
trout  in  the  beautiful  left  prong  of  the  Oconaluf- 
tee  we  were  then  ascending,  as  well  as  in  the  oth- 
er headwaters  of  the  river  of  the  Cherokees,  but 
the  very  last  sign  of  civilization  on  the  road  was 
the  following :  "Notis.  This  farm  is  posted.  No 
fishen  or  hunten  or  trespas  in  aney  Way."  The 
writer  of  the  "Xotis"  was  said  to  be  an  infidel, 
and  one  could  easily  believe  anything  hard  about 
one  so  selfish  in  these  remote  regions.  But  an- 
glers need  not  worry.  It  is  not  more  than  fifteen 
miles  from  the  Ducktown  railroad  to  the  head- 
waters of  half  a  dozen  streams  flowing  down 
from  the  Smokies,  and  abounding  in  the 
"speckled  beauties/' 

We  were  making  for  "the  Gap,"  by  an  ascent 
that  was  easy  and  gradual,  with  no  fine  views, 


Cllngman's  Dome.  437 

but  with  the  beauty  of  the  primeval  forest  all 
around  us,  the  brook  babbling  at  our  side,  the 
breath  of  the  mountains  health  itself.  Does  water 
ever  taste  so  good  as  when  you  kneel  at  a  trick- 
ling brooklet  and  get  strength  for  the  further 
climb?  Husky  pointed  out  a  spot  where  he  had 
once  skinned  a  "main  big  bear,"  having  caught 
him  in  a  trap  and  then  "snaked"  (dragged)  him 
down  the  mountain.  He  was  "a  master  big  one," 
and  if  he  had  been  "big  fat"  he  would  have 
weighed  five  hundred  pounds.  Husky  was  on  the 
watch  for  bear  signs,  and  presently  when  he  came 
to  a  "fire-scald"  (spot  where  the  forest  had  once 
been  burned)  he  stopped,  raised  his  hand  warn- 
ingly,  and  peered  intently  into  the  blackberry 
thicket.  We  saw  the  tall  briers  shake  and  heard 
the  crackling  of  sticks  under  the  bear's  feet,  but 
only  Husky  had  actually  caught  a  glimpse  of 
him.  We  had  to  content  ourselves  with  the  black- 
berries the  bear  had  left.  They  were  quite  sweet, 
and  as  the  briers  had  few  "stickers"  we  had  no 
trouble'  in  gathering  them.  Maurice  Thompson 
rightly  says,  in  "Nibbling  and  Browsing,"  that 
wild  fruits  never  taste  their  best  except  in  the 
wilds. 

At  ten  o'clock  we  lay  down  in  "the  Gap"  on  the 
state  line  5,271  feet  above  sea  level.  There  was 
little  view,  but  the  breath  of  the  balsams  was 


438  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

like  a  tonic.  Coats,  waterproofs,  haversacks, 
were  now  arranged  so  as  to  impede  us  as  little 
as  possible,  for  from  this  on  for  ten  or  twelve 
miles  we  were  to  be  in  an  unbroken  wilderness 
without  a  trail,  with  possibly  only  "blazes"  here 
and  there  to  guide  us.  Husky  did  not  know  the 
way,  but  we  felt  sure  he  could  recognize  "blazes" 
where  we  should  see  none.  General  Clingman 
and  Professor  Guyot  had  "blazed"  the  route  be- 
fore the  war,  and  I  had  a  letter  in  my  pocket 
written  by  Professor  Alexander,  of  the  Universi- 
ty of  North  Carolina,  in  1888,  after  a  tramp  along 
this  very  ridge.  We  hoped  we  could  find  the 
trail.  Husky  told  us  of  a  basin  near  the  Gap  over- 
grown with  laurel,  in  which  he  had  once  got  lost ; 
but  he  was  sure  he  could  now  "surround"  it.  But 
alas !  we  were  in  it  before  we  knew  it,  the  blazes 
disappeared,  and  we  were  lost.  Husky  told  us 
to  sit  down  and  eat  something  while  he  beat  about 
for  the  "signs."  He  got  back  to  us  in  time  by 
calling  to  us  and  following  the  sound  of  our 
yells.  He  said  he  had  found  the  way,  and  pointed 
straight  in  the  direction  we  had  come.  We  told 
him  we  would  follow  him  if  he  persisted,  but 
we  should  surely  come  out  just  where  we  started 
in.  "Why,  men,  you're  plumb  bewildered,"  he 
said.  But  he  concluded  to  take  our  course,  and 
again  we  plunged  into  the  laurel  thicket.  Reader, 


Clingman's  Dome.  439 

did  you  ever  crawl  and  climb  through  a  laurel 
"rough"?  If  not,  don't  say  you  ever  did  any- 
thing difficult.  Once  I  fell  backward  over  a  log, 
with  both  feet  hung  under  laurel  roots  on  the 

other  side,  but  K was  just  behind  to  lend  a 

helping  hand ;  and  though  my  ankle  felt  the  strain 
for  some  days,  it  did  not  fail  me. 

At  last  we  reached  the  balsam  again,  and  found 

that  K and  I  had  been  right,  for  the  blazes 

reappeared,  leading  southwestward.  Henceforth 
we  dared  not  go  fifty  yards  without  seeing  a 
"blaze,"  for  some  high  ridge  might  at  any  time 
lead  us  astray.  At  one  point  we  lost  the  blazes 
again,  the  mountain  descended  rapidly  in  front, 
and,  though  we  could  see  Clingman  proper  in  the 
distance,  a  great  gulf  seemed  to  yawn  between. 
Once  more  Husky  lost  his  head,  and  insisted  that 
our  road  lay  directly  behind  us.  Much  hunting  at 
last  discovered  the  "divide"  connecting  the  two 
ridges,  and  with  the  help  of  frequent  "blazes," 
and  still  more  frequent  bear  "signs,"  we  plunged 
On. 

Henceforth  we  kept  the  course,  but  the  diffi- 
culty of  the  way  beggars  description — tearing  our 
way  through  briers  that  would  have  torn  us  to 
pieces  if  there  had  been  "stickers,"  climbing  over 
fallen  timber,  crawling  through  all  manner  of 
small  growth.  Our  thirst  soon  became  intense, 


44O  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

and  we  gladly  drank  from  a  "bear-wallow,"  the 
only  water  for  many  awful  miles.  Trembling  in 
every  limb,  with  hands  scratched,  wet — for  it  had 
rained  on  us — -we  reached  the  top  at  last.  We 
were  standing  6,600  feet  above  the  sea;  but  it 
was  cloudy  and  the  scrubby  growth  hid  most  of 
the  view  we  might  have  had.  We  remembered 
Sam  Walker's  exclamation  concerning  the  same 
point:  "Ef  I'd  jist  had  a  spyglass  long  enough,  I 
could  a'  seen  Jerusalem !" 

Even  as  it  was  we  dared  not  tarry.  Night  was 
coming  on  apace.  We  knew  the  light  would  not 
last  long  enough  to  follow  the  "blazes"  clear  out 
from  the  balsam.  We  must  find  water  before  it 
was  pitch  dark.  It  looked  as  if  we  might  roll  to 
eternity  down  either  steep  side  of  the  mountain. 
Still,  after  consultation,  we  plunged  down  the 
North  Carolina  side  seeking  water.  We  slipped 
on  rocks,  we  fell  over  logs,  we  stumbled  through 
the  bushes  for  nearly  a  mile,  and  then  it  was 
dark,  and  no  trace  of  water.  Husky  vowed  he 
must  have  water ; .  but  we  knew  to  go  farther 
meant  a  broken  leg,  if  not  a  broken  neck,  and  re- 
fused to  follow.  Cutting  dry  balsam  wood  with 
a  hatchet  by  the  dim  light  of  a  clouded  moon,  we 
kindled  a  fire  at  last  and  opened  our  haversacks, 
but  our  mouths  were  dry  and  we  could  not  swal- 
low. The  ground  under  us  was  soaked.,  and, 


Clingman's  Dome.  441 

though  balsam  boughs  protected  us  from  this, 
the  incline  was  so  steep  that  we  were  in  danger 
of  slipping  into  the  fire  if  we  slept.  Imagine  us, 

then,  K lodged  against  a  dead  balsam  stump, 

the  writer  with  an  arm  around  a  little  balsam, 
Husky  propped  against  two  slabs  he  had  driven 
down,  all  thinking  or  dreaming  fitfully  of  water, 
and  the  rain  beginning  to  fall.  It  was  "plumb 
cool  on  the  Smokies." 

It  was  only  half-past  seven  when  we  got  finally 
settled  for  the  night.  In  some  respects  the  situ- 
ation would  have  been  improved  could  we  have 
reached  the  top  again  after  abandoning  the  search 
for  water.  The  ridge,  though  narrow,  was  level, 
and  the  grass  and  moss,  though  wet,  soft  and 
tempting  to  weary  limbs.  But  it  was  impossible 
to  grope  our  way  in  the  darkness,  through  all  the 
obstructions  that  beset  the  course.  Besides,  our 
only  chance  for  water  was  below  us,  and  we  in- 
tended to  renew  the  search  as  soon  as  it  became 
light  again.  Then,  too,  the  guide,  hearing  the 
muttering  of  thunder  in  the  north,  said  it  was 
sure  to  rain,  and  was  afraid  of  the  lightning, 
which  strikes  often  on  the  highest  ridges.  We 
could  hardly  help  hoping  that  it  would  rain,  for 
we  could  soon  catch  in  our  waterproofs  enough 
water  to  drink.  On  the  other  hand,  there  was 
the  certainty  that  a  hard  rain  would  put  out  our 


442  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

fire,  for  balsam  wood  burns  ill.  It  would  be  nine 
hours,  at  least,  before  we  could  see  to  move,  and 
even  when  dawn  came  a  fog  might  settle  down 
upon  us  so  thick  as  to  turn  day  into  night.  Soon 
the  rain  began  to  patter  on  the  leaves,  and  we 
spread  our  waterproofs  to  catch  the  precious 
drops ;  but  it  was  only  a  drizzling  shower.  It  got 
colder  and  colder,  and  Husky,  who  had  not  even 
a  coat  with  him,  vowed  it  would  snow  before 

morning.      K ,    firmly    propped    against    his 

stump,  forgot  his  weariness  and  want  of  water 
after  a  while  in  sleep;  and  I,  after  waiting  an 
interminable  while,  looked  at  my  watch  and 
found  it  only  nine  o'clock. 

So  the  hours  dragged.  There  was  nothing  to 
do  but  push  up  the  fire  from  time  to  time,  look 
at  the  watch  every  half  hour,  and  wait.  The  still- 
ness of  a  great  mountain  is  impressive  in  the  day- 
time ;  at  night  it  is  awful.  The  whole  night  long 
there  was  not  the  buzz  of  an  insect,  the  chirp  of 
a  bird,  the  note  of  any  wild  thing;  only  the  occa- 
sional patter  of  raindrops  and  the  sighing  of  the 
winds  in  the  balsams.  But,  in  the  course  of  time, 
the  cool  night  air  and  the  dampness  had  rendered 
our  thirst  endurable.  Now  and  then  the  darkness 
thickened  until  it  was  Egyptian,  and  we  knew 
the  fog  had  settled  upon  us ;  but  it  always  merci- 
fully lifted  again. 


Clingman's  Dome.  443 

At  last  about  4:30  came  unheralded  "a  day  of 
darkness  and  of  gloominess,  a  day  of  clouds  and 
of  thick  darkness,  as  the  morning  spread  over  the 
mountains."  It  was  the  only  time  I  had  ever  wit- 
nessed a  dawning  greeted  by  no  gladsome  note 
from  any  creature.  As  soon  as  he  dared,  the 
guide  started  down  the  mountain,  and  had  not 
gone  more  than  fifty  yards  before  he  shouted 
"Water !"  In  a  moment  we  were  at  his  side  drink- 
ing eagerly. 

At  once  all  things  became  bright  again,  except 
the  sky.  Coffee  was  soon  made,  meat  fried,  bread 
baked,  and  we  ate  with  appetites  that  had  had  but 
little  to  stay  them  for  twenty- four  hours.  Once 
more  we  started  upward,  thinking  in  three-quar- 
ters of  an  hour  we  could  reach  the  ridge  we  had 
left  the  night  before ;  but  just  then  "the  heavens 
dropped,  the  clouds  also  dropped  water."  In  fact, 
it  rained  hard.  Waterproofs  were  of  no"  service, 
for  they  would  have  impeded  us  in  climbing  and, 
besides,  would  have  been  torn  to  shreds  in  the 
undergrowth.  Feeling,  however,  that  rain  was 
a  mercy  compared  with  a  thick  fog,  we  pressed 
on  and  reached  the  blazed  trail,  which  was  now 
sufficiently  distinct  to  be  followed  without  great 
difficulty. 

We  had  now  good  hope  of  getting  safely  out 
of  the  balsams,  and  so  were  comparatively  out 


444  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

of  danger  of  getting  lost.  Wet  to  the  skin,  shoes 
half  filled  with  water,  it  was  a  trying  march,  but 
we  could  keep  warm  as  long  as  we  walked  brisk- 
ly. The  trail  soon  developed  into  a  path,  and 
signs  of  balsam-gatherers  began  to  appear;  for 
men  come  long  distances  to  gather  balsam  juice 
or  resin.  We  had  reached  once  more  the  range 
of  cattle,  and  presently  came  upon  a  rude  bark 
shelter.  But  the  nearest  herder's  cabin  was  still 
at  least  five,  perhaps  eight  or  nine,  miles  away; 
and  so  we  hurried  on.  In  due  time  we  were  in 
the  open,  on  "Siler's  Bald,"  as  we  supposed  it 
was.  The  mountain  culminated  at  many  points 
in  a  sharp  comb,  along  which  the  trail  ran,  and 
though  the  fog  was  again  dense  we  had  no  fear 
of  missing  the  course.  If  it  had  only  been  clear, 
what  glorious  views  we  should  have  had  from 
those  high,  sharp,  grass-covered  ridges,  where 
now  we  looked  only  into  the  impenetrable  mist! 

As  the  morning  wore  on  the  fog  lifted,  the  sun 
came  out,  the  valley  appeared  below,  and  as  far 
as  the  eye  could  reach  to  right  and  left  stretched 
the  everlasting  forest-clad  mountains.  It  was  the 
primeval  forest.  For  hours  not  a  trace  of  a  clear- 
ing, not  a  sign  of  human  habitation  appeared. 
We  passed  herds  of  fine,  fat  cattle,  that  ran 
when  they  saw  us,  to  the  salting  places,  and 
looked  with  mildly  wondering  eyes  when  we 


CHngman's  Dome.  445 

passed  by  without  salting  them.  Our  course  lay 
along  a  high  ridge,  which,  though  sometimes  it 
widened  out  and  was  heavily  timbered,  was  gen- 
erally very  narrow  with  sloping  sides.  Now  and 
then  the  ridge  seemed  to  be  going  to  end  abruptly 
just  a  little  ahead,  but  there  would  be  only  a  sud- 
den descent  of  two  hundred  or  three  hundred 
feet;  the  trail  would  cross  over  a  "divide,"  or 
connecting  ridge,  and  climb  another  lofty  ascent. 
The  sun  and  brisk  walking  had  dried  our  clothes, 
and  for  three  hours  or  more  the  way  had  been 
so  good,  the  views  so  fine,  that  one  of  the  party 
exclaimed,  "I  don't  believe  there  can  be  a  finer 
ten-mile  walk  on  earth !" 

But  where  was  Thunderhead?  We  had  aver- 
aged about  three  miles  an  hour;  it  was  after  2 
P.M.,  and  the  rocky  point  made  famous  in  Miss 
Murfree's  "In  the  Clouds"  ought  to  be  in  sight. 
We  began  to  be  a  little  uneasy.  Farms  began  to 
appear  in  the  Tennessee  direction,  where  only  the 
wilderness  should  have  been  visible.  Presently 
the  Little  Tennessee's  yellow  waters  gleamed  off 
to  our  left  in  the  right  direction,  but  too  near. 
Some  two  miles  farther  on  through  a  clear  space 
we  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  waters  of  a  consider- 
able stream  in  a  cultivated  valley  on  the  right  of 
our  ridge,  and  we  knew  then  that  somewhere  in 
the  fog  of  the  forenoon  we  had  left  the  main 


446  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

Smoky  range  and  were  now  lost.  Presently  there 
was  an  abrupt  descent  for  hundreds  of  feet,  a 
trail  crossed  at  right  angles,  and  we  guessed  we 
were  on  the  "divide,"  between  Hazel  Creek  and 
the  Little  Tennessee. 

Turning  square  to  the  left,  we  were  soon  in  an 
apple  orchard  and  presently  at  a  mountaineer's 
cabin.  It  was  as  we  suspected.  The  main  Smoky 
ridge  was  away  off  to  the  right,  and  we  should 
have  to  go  twelve  or  fourteen  miles  across  to 
reach  Thunderhead.  We  had  got  off  the  main 
ridge  in  the  fog  and  come  down  what  the  moun- 
taineers call  the  Bald  Ridge.  We  had  walked 
twenty-four  or  twenty-five  miles,  they  said. 

If  all  my  readers  had  stood  even  once  on  any 
high  peak  of  the  Smokies,  I  should  hardly  need 
to  explain  why  I  love  so  to  tramp  in  the  wildest 
and  most  beautiful  of  Southern  mountains.  I 
have  loved  the  mountains  ever  since  the  dark  line 
of  the  Blue  Ridge  was  first  pointed  out  to  me 
from  my  Middle  South  Carolina  home.  I  have 
spent  hours  of  supreme  content  on  Caesar's  Head, 
Table  Rock,  and  Hogback,  in  South  Carolina; 
on  Tryon,  The  Bald,  and  Mount  Mitchell,  in 
North  Carolina ;  on  Roan,  Clingman's  Dome, 
Thunderhead,  and  Gregory's  Bald,  in  the  Smok- 
ies ;  on  White  Top  and  Mount  Pleasant,  in  Vir- 
ginia ;  on  Graylock,  in  Massachusetts ;  on  the 


Clingman's  Dome.  447 

Rigi,  Vesuvius,  and  many  others.  "The  moun- 
tains shall  bring  peace  to  the  people,"  sang  the 
Psalmist.  There  is  nothing  like  the  mountains 
to  bring  rest  to  a  tired  brain,  quiet  to  over- 
wrought nerves.  There  are  two  supreme  things 
in  the  earth  sublime  beyond  all  others — the  sea 
and  the  mountains.  The  sea  has  often  enticed 
men's  thoughts  to  gain,  but  the  mountains  have 
from  time  immemorial  awakened  his  religious 
aspirations.  The  Greeks  thought  their  gods  lived 
on  Mount  Olympus,  and  they  built  their  temples 
by  preference  on  mountains  and  hills,  whither 
they  went  out  to  worship  in  joyful  procession 
with  music  and  dancing,  clad  in  bright  robes  and 
wreaths  of  flowers.  The  ancient  Hebrews  met 
Jehovah  oftenest  on  mountain  tops.  Moses  met 
God  on  Mount  Sinai;  from  Nebo  God  showed 
him  the  promised  land,  and  on  Nebo  God  buried 
his  servant.  On  Mount  Hor  God  took  Aaron. 
Horeb  was  the  "mount  of  God,"  and  Mount  Zion 
"the  city  of  our  God."  On  Mount  Carmel  Eli- 
jah met,  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  the  priests  of 
Baal.  From  a  mountain  top  the  second  great 
temptation  was  offered  Christ;  it  was  into  a 
mountain  apart  that  he  went  up  to  pray;  on  a 
mountain  he  preached  the  greatest  sermon  that 
ever  was  preached;  on  a  mountain  he  ordained 
the  Twelve ;  on  a  mountain  he  was  transfigured ; 


448  Reminiscences  and  Sketches. 

from  a  mountain  he  ascended.  In  the  Hebrew 
conception  the  mountains  were  as  old  as  the 
hoary  sea:  "Before  the  mountains  were  brought 
forth  .  .  .  thou  art  God,"  sang  the  Psalmist. 
"Before  the  mountains  were  settled,  before  the 
hills  was  I  brought  forth,"  exclaimed  Wisdom. 
"Which  by  his  strength  setteth  fast  the  moun- 
tains," said  the  Psalmist,  when  he  would  describe 
the  Almighty's  power.  Isaiah  testified  of  his 
strength  by  saying,  "He  weighed  the  mountains 
in  scales";  and  Job  represented  Jehovah's  awful 
wrath  by  saying,  "He  overturneth  the  mountains 
in  his  anger." 


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